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THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA 
IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


a a eee a SE 


| HE ROMAN CAMPAGNA 
iN CLASSICAL TIMES 
Sy THOMAS ASHBY, D.Lirr. 


NEW YORK 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1927 | 


PREFACE 


mention his predecessors in this field of explora- 

tion: and it is easy to do it, for they are few in 
comparison with the numerous scholars who have busied 
themselves with the topography of Rome. 
_ An extraordinarily fine map of the Campagna was 
published anonymously in 1547 by one Eufrosino della 
Volpaia, and was followed the next year by a book by 
Domenico Boccamazza, who had been the chief huntsman 
of Pope Leo X, describing the Campagna from the sports- 
man’s point of view, which bears an astonishingly close 
relation to it. Only one copy of it was known to exist 
(I understand that another has recently been found at 
Breslau),! but it served as the unacknowledged model for 
all subsequent maps for over a century. 

From that curious genius Pirro Ligorio—so much of 
whose good work is spoilt by his ineradicable tendency 
to make the truth still more picturesque by mixing it 
up with falsehood—a certain amount of information may 
be obtained: but the first investigator of the Campagna 
who really counts is the Danish priest Lucas Holste, the 
friend of Cardinal Antonio Barberini, who died in 1661 
and who knew it as no one did before and as few have 
known it since. Unluckily neither he nor Raphael Fabretti 
of Urbino, the explorer of the aqueducts, was able to 
publish his results in full; and while we have an anno- 
tated copy of Cluver’s Italia Antiqua and a few maps 
(all now in the Barberini Library at the Vatican) from 
the former’s hand, from the latter we have nothing but 
his three published works—the De Aquaeductibus (1680, 


1 See p. 12. 


H: WOULD BE INDEED UNGRATEFUL who did not 


5 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


and the Inscriptiones, and a curious controversial work 
directed against Gronovius. In the meantime, the survey 
of the various farms of the Campagna, carried out by 
the order of Pope Alexander VII, had rendered the forma- 
tion of other maps possible; and the Jesuit Eschinardi, 
with the help of the surveyor Cingolani, incorporated the 
results in a new map, to which he wrote an important 
but brief text. Another explorer of whose work but 
little is left is the Spaniard Diego Revillas, who, like 
Fabretti, was much interested in the territory of Tivoli, 
the upper Anio valley and the aqueducts, but published 
nothing beyond two maps. 

All these men are absolutely trustworthy—which is 
more than can be said for two other Jesuits, Kircher and 
Volpi, though in both there is wheat among the chaff. 
We have thus arrived at the first half of the eighteenth 
century: and we have to wait till the early years of the 
nineteenth—for the work of men like Gavin Hamilton and 
Thomas Jenkins was devoted only to the discovery of 
works of art—before, with Sir William Gell and Antonio 
Nibby, a new map of the Campagna was formed. The 
triangulation was the work of Gell, while both explored | 
and studied the whole district—with what thoroughness 
is clear both from their published works and from their 
notebooks, which I have the good fortune to possess. 
At the same time the German J. H. Westphal was also 
making a fairly thorough exploration, but was unable to 
return to complete it: while Canina’s various works are 
of a certain value but are often inaccurate in details. 
After them, again, there is a long interval—and indeed, 
until we come to the modern works of Tomassetti and 
Lanciani there is little of importance to record. To the 
latter and to my father (the best of companions while he 
lived) I owe my first introduction to the delights of the 
exploration of the Campagna; and to our mutual friends, 
the Misses Bulwer and the Rev. Father P. P. Mackey, 
O.P.—the latter an untiring investigator of its remotest 
corners—a number of the photographs which illustrate 
the present work are due. A younger pupil of Professor 
6 : 


PREFACE 


Lanciani’s, Professor Giuseppe Lugli, has done much good 
work on the Campagna of recent years, and is now in 
charge of the Italian Archaeological Survey of the district, 
the first portion of which, dealing with Terracina and its 
neighbourhood, has just appeared. 

_ In my own descriptions and maps I have done my 
best to register all I could, and to them I must refer 
those of my readers who desire further information on 
points of detail. 

Nor should I forget to mention the artists whose sketches 
and drawings may help us to realise the spirit of the 
Campagna. I have said that its charm defies description : 
but Claude, J. R. Cozens, and Turner—to name no more-—— 
may be taken as representatives of the many artists who 
have sought inspiration from it: and, by good fortune, 
attention has recently been called to their work by the 
publication of a well-illustrated volume dealing with each 
of them. 

Finally, to my wife I owe much help, and to her I 
gratefully dedicate this book. 


THOMAS ASHBY 
_ May 1927 


CONTENTS 


PREFACE . : ‘ : : ; ‘ ; , : : : ‘ 5 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS j : ‘ ‘ ‘ ; ‘ ‘ 10° 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ‘ : : ‘ ‘ . : > ‘ 12, 
GENERAL INTRODUCTION . ; ; : 4 4 ; z i 15 


The roads which radiate from Rome may, for our present 
purpose, be divided into the following groups, beginning 
on the left bank of the Tiber and working southwards) 
(clockwise) : : 


I 


THE ROADS LEADING TO THE SABINE COUNTRY 
AND THE APENNINES 


FAGR 
PRELIMINARY NOTE ‘ ; ‘ ; : F ; . 57 
I. THE VIA SALARIA . ; : : ; ‘ ‘ : ; 59 
II. THE VIA NOMENTANA . ; : ; ; : : 4 82 
II. THE VIA TIBURTINA . : é ; a : - 98 


II 


THE ROADS LEADING TO THE ALBAN HILLS 
AND THE SOUTH-EAST 


PRELIMINARY NOTE ies : ‘ P . . ;. oe 

IV. THE VIA PRAENESTINA. , : 5 ; ‘ : - 128 
Iva. THE VIA COLLATINA , : : ‘ ‘ " ; - 148 
V. THE VIA LABICANA : h . ‘ ‘ : ‘ . 146 
VI. THE VIA LATINA . ; ; : : : 4 . - 158 
Vil. THE VIA APPIA (WITH THE VIA ANTIATINA) . . . 174 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


VIII. 


=X. 


XI. 


XII. 


III 
THE ROADS LEADING TO THE SEA-COAST 


PRELIMINARY NOTE ° ° 
THE VIA ARDEATINA, THE ROAD TO SATRICUM, AND THE 
VIA LAURENTINA 


THE VIA OSTIENSIS (WITH THE VIA CAMPANA AND THE 
VIA PORTUENSIS) 


IV 
THE ROADS LEADING INTO ETRURIA 


PRELIMINARY NOTE 
THE VIA AURELIA . ° 
THE VIA CLODIA AND THE VIA CASSIA 


V 
THE ROADS LEADING TO THE NORTH 


PRELIMINARY NOTE 
THE VIA FLAMINIA AND THE VIA TIBERINA 


INDEX 


PAGE 
205 


207 


214 


223 
225 
231 


245 
24:7 


253 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


ig A et ieee sense AR NSF 


Rm bb bd bh WD ODD ODD ODD eee 
SBXSaesSPkSsnraaneanns 


ho 
os 


FIDENAE FROM THE VILLA OF LIVIA (67) . 
GROTTE TORRI (79) . 

SULPHUR LAKE NEAR BAGNI (99) 

THE LARGER BATHS, HADRIAN’S VILLA (108) 
VIADUCT NEAR HADRIAN’S VILLA (111) 
VILLAGE OF S. VITTORINO (111) . 

TEMPLES AT TIVOLI (1138) 


NYMPHAEUM UNDER 8. ANTONIO, TIVOLI (114). 


PLATFORM OF VILLA, COLLE VITRIANO (116) 
TERRACE WALL OF VILLA OF BRUTUS (?) (121) 
REMAINS OF VILLA OF THE GORDIANI (130) 
TEMPLE AT GABII (134) . 

PONTE DI NONA (182) 

OSA STREAM AND ALBAN HILLS (133) . 

VIA PRAENESTINA (136) . 

HUTS AT GABII (135) 

CORCOLLE (137) 

PASSERANO (137) 

PONTE S. ANTONIO (1387) 

PONTE AMATO (1388) 

CASTEL S. PIETRO (139). 

QUARRIES, CERVARA (143) 

LUNGHEZZA (145) 

SETTE BASSI (157) . 

CENTRONI (159) . 

VILLA OF THE QUINTILII (185) 

VIA APPIA AND ALBAN HILLS (187) 
CIRCUS, BOVILLAE (190) . 

PALAZZOLA (192) 


FACING PAGE 
67 


67 
99 
99 
111 
111 
113 
1138 
116 
116 
- 1380 
- 1380 
1382 
132 
135 
185 
137 
137 
138 
138 
139 
139 
145 
145 
. 159 
159 
- 187 
- 489 
- 192 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


FACING PAGE 


ARIccIA (194) .. - ; . ‘ Pane ; . 192 
EMBANKMENT OF VIA APPIA BELOW ARICCIA (196) . . 196 
LAKE OF NEMI (197). : : , ‘ ; : . 196 
LAVINIUM (THE MODERN PRATICA) (212) . : : -f eh 
ARDEA (212) . ; : ‘ : ; : : : , 212 
WALLS OF ARDEA (212) . : : é : : ‘ . 218 
COAST AT ANZIO (213) . : ; ‘ ; : : . 213 
CASTLE, OSTIA (214) ‘ . : ‘ ‘ : : . 214 
PALAESTRA OF BATHS, OSTIA (216) . . - - + 214 
CAPITOLIUM AND DECUMANUS, OSTIA (216) ‘ : . 216 
RIVER NUMICUS (217) . ‘ ; 7 ; : : . 216 
CASTEL FUSANO (217) . : ‘ , ; ‘ , o)) ae 
ARCO DI NOSTRA DONNA, PORTO (218) d ; , 4 DeLee 
‘¢PEMPLE OF PORTUNUS,” PORTO (218) . : ‘ . 219 
FLOODS NEAR PONTE GALERA (219) . : ‘ , ~ 219 
TOMB ON VIA VEIENTANA (2382) . ‘ : : ‘ . 282 
GALERA, CHURCH AT (234) . , ; : : : . 282 
PRIMA PORTA (248) . ; : : ‘ ‘ ‘ : . 248 
QUARRIES NEAR GROTTA OSCURA (249) : ° , . 248 
MAP SHOWING ANCIENT ROMAN ROADS ~ tt gene ae eae 


Norr.—Figs. 1, 6, 13, 15, and 20 are from photographs by Mr. G. R. Swain, 


Photographer of the Near East Expedition of the University of Michigan ; 
Figs. 3,9, 11, 14, 21, 25, 29, 30, 32, 36, 37, 41, and 46 are from photographs 
by Miss D. E. Bulwer; Figs. 12 and 28 are from photographs by the Rev. 
Father P. P. Mackey, O.P.; Fig. 4 is from a photograph by Anderson, of 
Rome. To all of these my best thanks are due. The rest are from my own 
photographs. _ Figs. 2, 5, 8, 9, 10, and 24 have already appeared in the 
nes of the British School at Rome, and Fig. 47 in the Journal of Roman 
tudies. 


ll 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
(In Chronological Order) 


Mappa della Campagna Romana del 1547 di Eufrosino della Volpaia, 
riprodotio dal? unico esemplare esistente nella Biblioteca Vati- 
cana, con introduzione di Thomas Ashby (Roma, 1914). 


The Breslau copy of the map of Eufrosino della Volpaia is described’ 
by Ruge in Gottingische Nachrichten, 1916. Beiheft, p. 32, 
No. 385. It is in the Stadtbibliothek (Gb. 158). 


For Pirro Ligorio, see Journal of Roman Studies, ix. (1919) 170 sqq. 


Holste’s notes were posthumously published under the title of 
Annotationes ad Cluverium in 1666. 


Kircuer, A. Latium (Amsterdam, 1671). 


FABRETTI, R. 
De Aquis et Aquaeductibus, ed. i, Rome, 1680; ed. ii, Rome, 1788. 
Ad J. Gronovium apologema. Naples, 1686. 
Inscriptiones antiquae. Rome, 1699. 


EscHINARDI, F. 
Espositione della Carta Cingolana dell? Agro Romano, ed. i, 
Rome, 1696 ; ed. ii (revised by R. Venuti), Rome, 1750. 


CORRADINI and Votri. Vetus Latium. 10 vols. (Rome, 1704-45). 
WESTPHAL, J. H. Rdmische Kampagne (Berlin and Stettin, 1829). 


GELL, Sir W. The Topography of Rome and its Vicinity. Ed. i 
in 2 vols., London, 1884; ed. ii in 1 vol., London, 1846 
(revised by Bunbury). 


Nissy, A. Analisi della carta det Dintorni di Roma, 3 vols. (Rome, 
1837 ; the 2nd edition of 1848-9 is a mere reprint.) 


ToMASSETTI, G. and F. La Campagna Romana Antica, Medioevale | 
e moderna, 4 vols. (Rome, 1910—in progress.) 
This is a more comprehensive reissue of an earlier work 
(La Campagna Romana nel Medio Evo, published in the 
Archivio della Societa Romana di Storia Patria, 1879-1907 
and separately), but does not entirely supersede it. 
12 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


LANCIANI, R. Wanderings in the Roman Campagna (London, 1909), 
and many special articles. 


Lucu, G. Various articles in the Bulletiino Comunale from 1914 
onwards on the villas of the Alban Hills (especially that of 
Domitian) and on the Imperial villas in the neighbourhood 
of Rome. The Castra Albana are dealt with in two articles 
in Ausonia, and the Via Triumphalis (on the Alban Mount) 
in Memorie dell? Accademia Pontificia, i. 1. 251 sqq. 


My own Classical Topography of the Roman Campagna? comprises : 


I. The Viae Collatina, Praenestina, and Labicana. 
(Papers of the British School at Rome, i. 121 sqq.) 


Il. The Viae Salaria, Nomentana, and Tiburtina ? (<b., iii. 1 sqq.). 


IlI. The Via Latina (ib., iv. 1 sqq.; v. 213 sqq.). 

The Via Flaminia (with Mr. R. A. L. Fell) in Journal 
of Roman Studies, xi. 125 sqq., and the Via Tiberina 
in Memorie dell’? Accademia Pontificia, i. 2. 129 sqq., 
while notes on detailed points connected with the 
Via Clodia and the Via Salaria have appeared in 
Rémische Mitteilungen, xxii. 311 sqq., xxvii. 221 sqq. 

For the aqueducts see my articles in the Builder, xciv. (1908, i.) 
and Neue Jahrbiicher, xxiii. (1909), 246 sqq.; a full list of 
remains, with their levels, and maps showing their exact 
position, will be found in Reina Corbellini and Ducci’s 
Livellazione degli Antichi Acquedotti Romani (Rome, 1917). 


Mr. Bradshaw’s restoration of Praeneste will be found in Papers, 
cit., ix. 233 sqq. 


For the drawings of Claude Lorrain, see Professor A. M. Hind’s 

volume (1925) ; for Cozens, Drawings by John Robert Cozens 

' (Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1923) ; and for Turner, my own 
volume, Turner’s Visions of Rome (1925). 


For Hadrian’s Villa see Winnefeld, H., Die Villa des Hadrian 
(Berlin, 1895). 


1 I am indebted to the Faculty of Archaeology, History, and 
Letters for permission to reproduce portions of these papers and 
some of the illustrations which appeared in them. 

2 A revised translation of the Via Tiburtina is appearing in the 
Alli e Memorie della Societa Tiburtina di Storia e d Arte (1922 sqq:)s 
in the first volume of which (1921) will also be found a translation 
of an article on Horace’s Villa at Tivoli, by G. H. Hallam and 
myself, originally published in the Journal of Roman Studies 
(iv. 121 sqq.). 

13 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA 
IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


GENERAL INTRODUCTION} 


possesses a peculiar fascination, and creates in 

oneself a feeling, elusive when one attempts to 
define it in words, and not capable indeed—as 1s the case 
with all our higher and most intimate emotions—of being 
reduced to precise terms. There it is, however, none the 
less, and I do not wish to imagine that any of my readers 
have not many times felt that indefinite, yet strong desire 
for it which comes to one far away. ‘“ They change their 
skies above them, but not their hearts, that roam,” says 
the modern poet, translating in an ideal way the well- 
known line of Horace.? He, too, has written that splendid 
poem of the sea and the hills— 


"Tv CAMPAGNA DI ROMA is a district which certainly 


Who hath desired the Sea? Her excellent loneliness rather 

Than forecourts of kings, and her outermost pits than the 
streets where men gather 

Inland among dust under trees—inland where the slayer may 
slay him— 

Inland, out of reach of her arms, and the bosom whereon 
he must lay him— 

His Sea at the first that betrayed—at the last that shall never 
betray him 

His Sea that his being fulfils ? 

So and no otherwise—so and no otherwise hillmen desire 

their hills. 


1 Portions of this introduction have appeared in the Builder, and 
others are included in the article on Latium in the 11th edition of 
the Encyclopaedia Britannica: they are reproduced here with the 
permission of the respective editors, which I gratefully acknowledge. 

2 Coelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt. 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


The hills and the sea have excited men’s imagination 
from the first. And, perhaps, part of the secret is, that 
here we have many of the characteristics of both. The 
hills, when one is not actually among them, stand round 
and form a background to almost every view in the lower — 
Campagna: while this, seen from the Alban or Sabine 
Hills, is almost indistinguishable at times from the sea — 
by which it is bounded: in certain lights the sun will for — 
a moment make us mistake the position of the long, low 
coastline, one of the most desolate in Europe. 

But that which seems from above to be as flat as a sea 
becalmed, proves, when one descends, to be furrowed in 
all directions by valleys great and small, deep and shallow. 
The volcanic rock lends itself to erosion: so that the 
general level of the hill-tops is fairly uniform, or rises and 
falls gradually, but unless one happens to be moving along 
a ridge, one’s course is continually up and down. And ~ 
this, too, has something of the sea—of a sea once in motion, 
but now as it were frozen, preserving still its infinite 
variety ; one hill, like one wave, is never quite the same 
as the next. There is, too, a great impression of vastness 
in the landscape of the Campagna—whether we look to the 
low hills stretching to the sea as far as the eye can reach, 
or to the great mountains on the other side rising far © 
away. “% 

The sea itself, on the other hand, has little to do with ~ 
our impressions of the Campagna: we see it in the dis- 
tance from the hills, but except in the actual coast-strip — 
we should hardly be able to guess, if we did not know, 
that it was, after all, so near. The coastline is low and © 
monotonous, and very sparsely populated: and we do — 
not see the flocks of sea-birds coming inland at the approach ~ 
of stormy weather, nor hear the scream of the gulls, nor — 
smell the salt breezes in the way that we do in the vicinity — 
of northern seas. The sea has played, and plays still, a 
singularly small part in the life of Rome: it is a mere truism 
to say that to the average Roman, though it is far less 
distant, it must be far less familiar than to the average — 
Londoner or Parisian. 4 
16 


GENERAL INTRODUCTION 


But there are other elements in the charm of the Cam- 
pagna—the contrast between the life of the past and the 
almost overwhelming solitude that reigns in the present ; 
we think first of the little village communities that once 
were formidable rivals to Rome herself, which in Strabo’s 
time even had become mere villages, the property of 
private individuals, so that we can hardly fix their sites 
—one of Sir William Gell’s correspondents speaks of his 
search for ‘the lost and mislaid cities of Latium’+; then 
we think of the free yeoman farmers who fought and died 
for the glory of the Republic and laid the foundations of 
her rapidly growing power. But when they died out the 
prosperity of the Campagna suffered a fatal blow: it 
fell into the hands of a few large proprietors and was 
cultivated by gangs of slaves: economically and from 
the point of view of public security we may compare its 
condition then with that of one hundred or two hundred 
years ago. 

Country houses in the neighbourhood of Rome hardly 
came into vogue before the second century 3B.c. But 
the fashion spread rapidly, and no doubt contributed 
in no small measure to the well-being of the Campagna, 
which was naturally benefited by the great revival of 
prosperity under the Empire, and especially in the times 
of Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines, when all Italy 
seems to have flourished as never before, until the long 
and gradual decadence and depopulation, which, as 
Professor Tomassetti has shown, reached its climax in 
days far nearer to our own than we are accustomed to 
think. 

All these memories crowd in upon us, and are brought 

more vividly to us by the ruins that we see, picturesque 
in their decay, serving often as shelter to the shepherds 
who come from the mountains with their flocks in the 
winter, and whose huts and sheepskin clothes must be 


1 Letter of Elphinstone to Gell, Aug. 6, 1835, among some letters 
deposited by Mr. Craven in the Department of Greek and Roman 
Antiquities at the British Museum. 

2 Builder, LXX XVII (1905) i. 31. 

B 1% 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


much the same as those of two thousand five hundred 
years ago. a ; 
And then the Campagna itself has so much variety, — 
besides natural beauties of a rare order: the change of — 
the landscape with the rising and setting of the sun, or 
the varying moods which it assumes with the changes” 
of the weather—here especially rapid and difficult to fore- 
cast—add a charm to every hour. j 
In one’s less sternly moral moments one even acquires — 
the feeling that every fine day spent indoors, with the 
Campagna so close, is in a sense wasted. And has not 
Stevenson written a most effective apology for idlers in — 
which he puts their case very convincingly ? : 
The Roman Campagna is a district in many respects | 
unique. Most large capitals are surrounded by suburbs, 
residential, industrial, and so forth, which extend for 
several miles beyond the city proper. But Rome, for — 
many reasons, forms an exception to the general rule. 
The choice of its site, commanding the only permanent ~ 
crossing of the Lower Tiber, seems to have been largely — 
dictated by commercial considerations, though in those ; 
early days a strong position was naturally selected: and ~ 
this the Palatine, which was certainly the nucleus of the 
city, offered in a pre-eminent degree. What the ravines — 
were like which once protected it we may see better at — 
Veii (in the Cremera valley, for example) than in Rome ~ 
itself, where there has been so much filling up and levelling ~ 
down. But from early times the importance of Rome ~ 
was mainly that of a ruling city and not of an emporium, ~ 
though it was that incidentally, inasmuch as the accumu- 
lation of wealth led to the growth of luxury: while 
under the Empire the population of Rome consisted of © 
the wealthy, of the functionaries of government, of a 
proletariat which toiled not but was fed by its rulers, — 
and of numerous slaves. In those days, of course, the © 
Campagna was covered with dwellings, but apparently | 
rather with the country residences of the well-to-do, with 
the parks and gardens attached to them, than with the ~ 
houses of the poor: the early villages had to a very 
18 


GENERAL INTRODUCTION 


considerable extent disappeared, and except on the 
higher roads, where some of them lived on as post-stations, 
they had not been replaced by others. So that even then 
there were, one may say, no true suburbs. 

Well before the imperial period the malaria! had, as 
we shall see, begun to make its appearance in certain 
districts, and after the fall of the Empire it no doubt 
became worse; but it would seem that its effect in the 
early Middle Ages has been somewhat exaggerated, and 
that the period of its greatest virulence is far more recent. 
But other causes co-operated to reduce the number of 
the inhabitants of the city of Rome, so that until quite 
recent years the circuit of the Aurelian walls enclosed an 
extent of ground much larger than was required for the 
actual dwellings of the population, and a considerable 
portion of this space was occupied by gardens and culti- 
vated areas. When Rome became the capital of the 
Italian kingdom, the population soon rose from a quarter 
to half a million: but the financial crisis of 1890 put a 
stop for a time to all development, and it is only in the 
last few years that growth has begun once more, so much 
so that the population is now well over three-quarters of a 
million, and is still on the increase. Now, the city is 
spreading rapidly on every side beyond the walls: and, 
except for the quarter along the Via Appia and on the 
Aventine and Caelian, we have already lost most of the 
picturesqueness of the narrow lanes shut in by high walls, 
of the vineyards and gardens still within the city, of 
churches half-forgotten which seemed in their peaceful 
repose so far from the bustle and noise of the town. 
Whatever the necessities of modern life may be, and—to 
touch on a still more delicate point—whatever visitors 
or even foreign residents in Rome may have to say on 
the various questions of street improvements, demoli- 
tions, etc. (which, in one sense, are primarily the affair of 
the inhabitants of Rome), there is no doubt that the 
‘mediaeval feeling, which, to many lovers of Rome, was 


1 W. H. S. Jones, in Malaria in Ancient Times, thinks that it had 
not even reached Latium as early as 400 B.c. 


19 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


not the least of its attractions, is disappearing fast. That 
this is in large measure inevitable, and that similar pro- 
cesses occur elsewhere, is true: but Rome occupies a 
unique position. It is not, and perhaps never will 
become, a manufacturing or commercial city, or a business — 
centre of the first rank: it is as the seat of Government 
even more than as a resort of foreign residents and tourists — 
that it has grown to its present size, and is still growing, 
faster perhaps than any city in the world—and yet the- 
supply of houses is still unequal to the demand. 4 

The Campagna Romana thus remains almost unspoilt, 
and there is no city which one can so quickly and easily 
leave behind as Rome. At an hour’s distance on foot” 
from almost any of its gates one may plunge into a soli- 
tude surprisingly profound, and forget completely that 
not far from a million of one’s fellow-men live at so short 
a distance away. The greater part of the Campagna is 
pasture-land, and that which is under cultivation is very 
largely cornland, so that the population at any time of 
year is extremely small in proportion to the area, while 
in summer it is reduced to a minimum. 

This state of things, which has gone on so long, will 
not continue very much longer, and signs of change are 
everywhere apparent. The law in regard to the so-called 
Bonifica, or improvement of the agricultural conditions 
of the Campagna, on which we shall touch later, and the 
successful war against malaria are producing considerable 
results. Rapid progress is already visible; new farm- 
houses are rising everywhere, and more land is continually 
coming under cultivation. 

The Campagna presents considerable natural advan- 
tages; the soil is largely volcanic and very fertile, and 
there is abundance of good water. Springs are plentiful, 
and where they fail, as in the Pomptine Marshes, artesian 
wells have been recently sunk with great success. Though 
most of it is now pasture-land and perhaps better fitted 
for this purpose, it seems indeed surprising that vege- 
tables and garden produce required for the consumption” 
of the capital are not supplied by growers in the immediate 
20 : 


GENERAL INTRODUCTION 


‘neighbourhood, but are still brought from a considerable 
distance: however, as usual in such cases all the world 
over, it is none too easy to break through the strongly ~ 
established ring which has the markets of Rome in its 
hands. In the meantime, the charm of the Campagna is 
-one which it is impossible to describe: the wonderful 
lights that play upon its innumerable ridges and valleys,®, 


the beautiful outlines of the mountains by which it is“\/_, 


bounded—many do not realise that from Rome orte_can 


easily see peaks in the Central Apennines which rise “to. 


over 8,000 feet above sea-level—the strange, desolate 
appearance of that part of it which runs towards the 
sea, hidden from us unless we ascend the dome of St. 
Peter’s or the Alban or Sabine Hills, the loneliness of the 


flat Latin shore stretching away south-eastward towards 
- that wonderful promontory of Monte Circeo, that dominates 
_ the whole coastline and the low-lying Pomptine Marshes, 
the broad, brown Tiber flowing swiftly in its winding 
course between high muddy banks—all these different 


scenes make up but a part of what few even of those who 


_ know and love it best have been able to convey to those 
_ who have but a slight acquaintance with it. 


It is very doubtful, however, whether the charm of 
the Campagna is meant to be described in prose: one 


might as well expect to understand a symphony of 
- Beethoven from a printed description, if one had never 


heard it and could not read the score. It is worth recall- 


ing J. K. Jerome’s remarks on the subject (Three Men on 


the Bummel, p. 118): ‘‘ Nothing is easier to write than 
scenery: nothing more difficult and unnecessary to read. 
To the average man, who has seen a dozen oil- 
paintings, a hundred photographs, a thousand pictures 
in the illustrated journals, a couple of panoramas of 
Niagara, the word-painting of a waterfall is tedious. 

‘“ An American friend of mine, a cultured gentleman, 
who loved poetry well enough for its own sake, told me 
that he had obtained a more correct and more satisfying 
idea of the Lake District from an eighteenpenny book of 
photographic views than from all the works of Coleridge, 

21 


Rae ete <— 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


Southey, and Wordsworth put together. I also remember 
his saying, concerning this subject of scenery in literature, 
that he would thank an author as much for writing an 
elegant description of what he had just had for dinner. 
But this was in reference to another argument: namely, 
the proper province of each art; my friend maintaining 
that just as canvas and colour were the wrong mediums — 
for story-telling, so word-painting was, at its best, but - 
a clumsy method of conveying Impressions that could — 
much better be received through the eye.’ 5 

We will begin from the very beginning, with a short ; 
sketch of the geology of the Campagna. We find that 
Sir Archibald Geikie, in his essay on the Roman Campagna,? | 
traces three distinct successive phases in the sequence 
of events which made the Campagna what it is: ‘“ First,” 
he says, ‘‘ came a time when the waves of the Mediterra- — 
nean broke against the base of the steep front of the 
Apennines, and when all the low grounds around Rome, ~ 
and for leagues to the north and south, lay sunk many 
fathoms deep... .’? The records of this first period 
(marine clay, sands, and gravels) lie beneath the Seven 
Hills on the left bank of the Tiber, but appear in the chain — 
of heights on the right bank that culminates in Monte > 
Mario (455 feet above sea-level).2 Next followed the chief 
period in the building up of the Campagna. A host of — 
volcanoes rose along the sea floor on the west side of 
Central Italy, when ashes, dust, and stones were thrown 
out in such quantity and for so prolonged a time as 
to strew over the sea bottom a mass of material 
several hundred feet thick. Partly from this accumu-— 
lation, and partly by an upheaval of the whole region © 
of Italy, the sea bottom with its voleanic cones was 
raised up as a strip of low land bordering the high 
grounds of the interior, and huge volcanoes were 
piled up to a height of several thousand feet. On the 


1 Landscape in History and other Essays (London, 1905), p. 312. 
* This clay has ever since Roman times supplied the material — 
for brickmaking, and we shall see that the valleys which now 
separate the different summits are in large measure artificial 
(Lanciani, Ruins and Excavations, 41). 


22 


GENERAL INTRODUCTION 


south side of the plain the group of the Alban Hills was 
built up by many successive eruptions. First there was 
a huge crater with a base about 12 miles in diameter 
(from Frascati to Velletri is about 10 miles). The pass 
of Algidus is a gap in this outer crater rim: and Rocca 
Priora occupies one of the highest points upon its rim, 
and was probably the site of an ancient town named 
Corbio. Within this a new and smaller one was subse- 
quently piled up enclosing a well-marked crater with the 
Campo d’Annibale at its bottom, while Monte Cavo 
marks almost (not quite) the highest point on its rim. 
There are various subsidiary craters—the lakes of Albano 
and Nemi, the Valle d’Ariccia, the Lago di Turno, Lake 
Regillus, Prata Porci, the lake of Gabii, etc. 

On the north side is an independent series of voleanoes— 
the lake of Bracciano, the Lago di Vico, the lake of 
Bolsena, etc. This volcanic activity must have greatly 
modified the topographical features—thus the lower part 
of the course of the Tiber, which originally flowed south- 
westward between Bolsena and Viterbo, was buried, and it 
had to find a new way of escape. The tufa of the Roman 
Campagna is not, however, according to Sir Archibald, 
derived from the eruptions of these two great volcanic 
groups, but is rather due “to local eruptions from many 
and generally small submarine vents, discharging here 
fine, there coarse materials, at different times and inde- 
pendent of each other ” (p. 828). These would be difficult 
to trace, but would, he thinks, be detected by accurate 
study. There is certainly abundant evidence of spent 
-yoleanic activity all over the Campagna—hot springs, 
exhalations of sulphuretted hydrogen—let us take as an 
example the Solfatara on the way to Ardea, or another 
at the point where the Velletri railway crosses the Via 
_ Appia Nuova; and the travertine that we find at Bagni 
and elsewhere is due to the deposition of carbonate of 
- lime in solution by hot springs, which may be regarded as 
an accompaniment or sequel of volcanic activity. 

“Lastly,” says Sir Archibald, “ succeeded the epoch 
in which the volcanic platform, no longer increased by 
E : 23 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


fresh eruptions, was carved by the atmospheric agency 
into the topography which it presents to-day.” : 
The district sloping down from Velletri to the deadam ; 
level of the Pomptine Marshes has not, like the western — 
and northern slopes of the Alban Hills, drainage towards — 
the Tiber. The subsoil, too, is differently formed: the — 
surface consists of very absorbent materials, then comes — 
a stratum of less permeable tufa or peperino (sometimes — 
clay is present), and below that again more permeable — 
materials. In ancient and probably pre-Roman times — 
this district was drained by an elaborate system of © 
cuniculi, or small drainage tunnels, about 5 feet high and © 
2 feet wide, which ran, not at the bottom of the valleys, — 
where there were sometimes streams already, and where, ~ 
in any case, erosion would have broken through their 
roofs, but along their slopes, through the less permeable — 
tufa, their object being to drain the hills on each side of — 
the valleys. They had probably much to do with the 
relative healthiness of this district in early times. Some 
of them have been observed to be earlier in date than the - 
Via Appia (312 B.c.). They were studied in detail by the 
late M. R. dela Blanchére. When they fell into desuetude, — 
the malaria gained the upper hand, the lack of drainage ~ 
providing breeding- places for the malarial mosquito. — 
Remains of similar drainage channels exist in many parts — 
of the Campagna Romana and of Southern Etruria, at points — 
where the natural drainage was not sufficient, and especi- — 
ally below cultivated or inhabited hills (though it was 
not necessary here, as in the neighbourhood of Velletri, — 
to create a drainage system, as streams and rivers were 7 
present already as natural collectors), and streams very 
frequently pass through them at the present day. | 
The drainage channels which were dug for the various - 
crater lakes in the neighbourhood of Rome are also interest- 
ing in this regard. That of the Alban Lake is the most j 
famous: but all the other crater lakes are similarly 
provided. % 
As the drainage by cuniculi removed the moisture _ 
in the subsoil, so the drainage of the lakes by emissaria— 
24 2 


GENERAL INTRODUCTION 


outlet channels at a low level—prevented the permeable 
strata below the tufa from becoming impregnated with 
moisture which they would have derived from the lakes 
of the Alban Hills. The slopes below Velletri, on the 
other hand, derive much of their moisture from the space 
between the inner and outer ring of the Alban volcano, 
which it was impossible to drain: and this in turn receives 
much moisture from the basin of the extinct inner crater.* 

Numerous isolated palacolithic objects of the Mousterian 
type have been found in the neighbourhood of Rome, in 
the quaternary gravels of the Tiber and Anio: but no 
traces of the neolithic period have come to light, as the 
many flint implements found sporadically round Rome 
probably belong to the period which succeeded the neo- 
lithic, called by Italian archaeologists the eneolithic 
period, inasmuch as both stone and metal (not, however, 
bronze, but copper) were in use.? 

At Sgurgola, in the valley of the Sacco, a skeleton 
was found in a rock-cut tomb of this period which still 
- bears traces of painting with cinnabar. A similar rock- 
cut tomb was found at Mandela, in the Anio valley. Both 
are outside the limits of the Campagna in the narrower 
sense, but similar tombs were found (though less accurately 
observed) in travertine quarries between Rome and 
Tivoli. Objects of the Bronze Age, too, have only been 
found sporadically. The earliest cemeteries and hut 
foundations of the Alban Hills belong to the Iron Age, and 
cemeteries and objects of a similar character have been 
found in Rome itself and in Southern Etruria, especially 
the characteristic hut-urns, imitated from the oblong 
huts. The objects found in these cemeteries show close 
affinity with those found in the terremare of Emilia, these 
last being of earlier date, and hence Pigorini and Helbig 
consider that the Latini were close descendants of the 
inhabitants of the terremare. On the other hand, the 


1 See M. R. de la Blanchére in Daremberg and Saglio, Dictionnatre 
des antiquités s.v. Cuniculus, Emissarium, and the same author’s 
Chapitre d’histoire pontine (Paris, 1889). 

2 See G. A. Colini, in Bullettino Paleoetnologico, xxxi. 1 (1905). 


25 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES — 


ossuaries of the Villanova type, while they occur as far 
south as Veii and Caere, have never so far been found on 
the left bank of the Tiber, in Latium proper. 

As to the dates to which these are to be attributed, there 
is not as yet complete accord, e.g. some archaeologists 
assign to the eleventh, other to the eighth century B.c., 
the earliest tombs of the Alban necropolis and the coeval 
tombs of the necropolis recently discovered in the Forum _ 
at Rome. (See B. Modestov, Introduction a Vhistoire — 
romaine (Paris, 1907); Pinza, Mon. Lincet, XV; T. E. 
Peet, The Stone and Bronze Ages in Italy (Oxford, 1909) ; 
Maclver, Villanovans and Early Etruscans (Oxford, 1924), 
who believes that the people of the terremare are only col- 
laterally related to the Villanovans, both being descended 
from the peoples of the Danube and Central Europe.) 

Latium ? in ancient geography is the name given to 
the portion of Central Italy which was bounded on the 
N.W. by Etruria, on the S.W. by the Tyrrhenian Sea, on 
the S.E. by Campania, on the E. by Samnium, and on the 
N.E. by the mountainous district inhabited by the Sabini, 
Aequi, and Marsi. The name was, however, applied in a 
very different sense at different times. Latium originally — 
meant the land of the Latini, and in this sense, which — 
alone is in use historically, it was a tract of limited extent; 
but after the overthrow of the Latin Confederacy, when 
the neighbouring tribes of the Rutuli, Hernici, Volsci, 
and Aurunci, as well as the Latini properly so called, 
were reduced to the condition of subjects and citizens 
of Rome, the name of Latium was extended to comprise 
them all, and include the whole country from the Tiber 
to the mouth of the Savo, so as just to include the Mons 
Massicus, though the boundary was not very precisely 
fixed. The change thus introduced, though already 
manifest in the composition of the Latin league, was not 
formally established till the reign of Augustus, who formed 


1 See L. Pigorini in Rendiconti dei Lincei, ser. v., vol. xvi. (1907) 
676, and xviii. 249 (1909). 

4 Latium, from the same root as latus, side ; later, brick ; tAdtvc, 
flat; Sanskrit prath ; not connected with ldtus, wide. 


26 


GENERAL INTRODUCTION 


of this larger Latium and Campania taken together the 
first region of Italy; but it is already recognised by 
Strabo, as well as by Pliny, who terms the additional 
territory thus incorporated Latium Adjectum, while he 
designates the original Latium, extending from the Tiber 
to Circeii, as Latium Antiquum. 

In this original sense Latium consisted principally of 
an extensive plain, now known as the Campagna di Roma, 
bounded towards the interior by the Apennines, which rise 
very abruptly from the plains to a height of between 4,000 
and 5,000 feet. Several of the Latin cities, including 


- Tibur and Praeneste, were situated on the terrace-like 


underfalls of these mountains,! while Cora, Norba, and 
Setia were placed in like manner on the slopes of the 
Volscian mountains (Monti Lepini), a rugged and lofty 
limestone range, which runs parallel to the main mass of 
the Apennines, being separated from them, however, by 
the valley of the Trerus (Sacco), and forms a continuous 
barrier from thence to Terracina. 

_ That Rome was once ruled by a race of Etruscan 
princes, the Tarquins, there is, even in the minds of the 
most critical of historians, practically no doubt. Under 
their sway or that of their like, the power of Etruria 
extended far to the south into Campania. Their fall 
meant a restriction of the growing power of Rome over 
her neighbours, and it was some while before the infant 
Republic could make up the lost ground. It was only at 
the beginning of the fourth century B.c., according to 
the traditional date, that Veii fell. The power of that 
city was considerable, and the great network of drainage 
channels to the north of it cannot have been the work 
of isolated landowners, but must be the result of a large 
and carefully planned scheme. The traces of the power 
of Veii lasted on in the nomenclature of Imperial times. 
Horace in a well-known passage talks of the right bank of 
the Tiber as the ‘‘ Etruscan bank.” 2 And, in the still 


1 In the time of Augustus the boundary of Latium extended as 
far E. as Treba (Trevi), 12 miles S.E. of Sublaqueum (Subiaco). 
2 Vidimus flavum Tiberim retortis litore Etrusco violenter undis, etc. 


27 


{ 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES — 


more prosaic language of the inscriptions on the bound- ~ 
ary stones placed along the right bank of the Tiber by 
Augustus,! we find that bank referred to as Ripa Veientana 
—the Veii bank—sometimes abbreviated as R.V. 

The Campagna di Roma in common parlance, and as 
we shall study it, includes besides Latium a considerable 
portion of Southern Etruria. Near Rome, on the right 
bank of the Tiber, there was probably much forest-land, 
for, while roads are plentiful, ruins are scarce. 

In attempting to trace the gradual spread of the power 
of Rome in Latium, we cannot place overmuch reliance — 
upon the traditional accounts, and to discuss, with Pais — 
and De Sanctis and others, the question of their credibility _ 
would take us far too long. The list of the thirty com- — 
munities belonging to the Latin League, given by Dionysius — 
of Halicarnassus (v. 61), is, however, of great importance. — 
It is considered by Th. Mommsen (Roman History, vol. i. — 
p. 448) that it dates from about the year 370 B.c., to which 
period belongs the closing of the Confederacy, no fresh — 
communities being afterwards admitted to it, and the 
~ consequent fixing of the boundaries of Latium. The q 
list is as follows: Ardeates, Aricini, Bovillani (or Bolani), : 
Bubentani, Cabani, Carventani, Circeiates, Coriolani, — 
Corbintes, Corni (probably Corani), Fortinei (?), Gabini, — 
Laurentini, Lavinates, Labicani, Lanuvini, Nomentani, — 
Norbani, Praenestini, Pedani, Querquetulani, Satricani, i 
Scaptini, Setini (Signini (?)), Tellenii, Tiburtini, Tolerini, — 
Tusculani, Veliterni. <q 

Most of these places can be identified: but Pliny the © 
Elder (N.H. iii. 69) gives us another list,” including at — 
most eight of those found in the list of Dionysius (and — 

1 O.I.L. vi. 81547, 81555. : 

2 Albani, Aesolani (probably E. of Tibur), Accienses, Abolani, — 
Bubetani, Bolani, Cusuetani (Carventani ?), Coriolani, Fidenates, — 
Foreti (Fortinei ?), Hortenses (near Corbio), Latinienses (near Rome — 
itself), Longani, Manates, Macrales, Munienses (Castrimoenium ?), — 
Numinienses, Olliculani, Octulani, Pedani, Poletaurini, Querquetu- — 
lani, Sicani, Sisolienses, Tolerienses, Tutienses (not, one would think, — 
connected with the small stream called Tutia at the sixth mile of — 


the Via Salaria—Liv. xxvi. 11), Vimitellari, Velienses, Venetulani, — 
Vitellenses (not far from Corbio). , 4 


28 


GENERAL INTRODUCTION 


those among the least known), which purports to be 
that of the populi Albenses, the earlier confederation 
of thirty towns or villages under the supremacy of Alba 
Longa. It is clear that this league did not occupy any 
great extent of territory, for the more powerful towns 
of Aricia, Lanuvium, and Tusculum were outside its 
sway. 

We are on firmer ground in dealing with the spread 
of the supremacy of Rome in Latium when we take account 
of the foundation of new colonies and the formation of 
new tribes, processes which as a rule go together. The 
information that we have as to the districts in which the 
sixteen earliest clans (tribus rusticae) were settled shows 
us that, except along the Tiber, Rome’s dominion extended 
hardly more than 5 miles beyond the city gates. Thus 
towards the north and east we find the towns of Antemnae, 
Fidenae, Caenina, and Gabii1!: on the S.E., towards 


_ Alba, the boundary of Roman territory was at the Fossae 


Cluiliae, 5 miles from Rome, where Coriolanus encamped, 
and on the S. towards Lavinium at the sixth mile, 
where sacrifice to Terminus was made: the Ambarvalia 
too were celebrated even in Strabo’s day at a place called 
Photo, between the fifth and sixth mile. The identifica- 
tion of this locality with the grove of the Arval brothers 
at the fifth mile of the Via Campana to the W. of Rome, 
and of the Ambarvalia with the festival celebrated by this 
brotherhood in May of each year, is now generally accepted. 
But Roman sway must either from the first or very soon 
have extended to the salt-marshes at the mouth of the 
Tiber.? 


1 We have various traces of the early antagonism to Gabil, e.g. 
the opposition between ager Romanus and ager Gabinus in the 
augural law. 

2 For the early extension of Roman territory towards the sea, 
see Festus, p. 213, Miill., s.v. Pectuscum: ‘‘ That part of the city 
is called the breastwork of the Palatine, which Romulus placed 
towards the enemy on the side on which the Roman territory 
extended furthest towards the sea, and on which the city was 
approached by the most gentle slope, the Roman territory being 
divided from the Etruscan by the river, and the other neighbouring 
cities having various hills facing them.” 


29 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES — 


The boundary of the ager Romanus antiquus towards 
the N.W. is similarly fixed by the festival of the Robigalia 
at the fifth milestone of the Via Clodia. ey, 

Within this area fall the districts inhabited by the earliest 
tribes, so far as these are known to us. The Romilii were 
settled on the right bank of the Tiber near the sanctuary 
of the Arvales, the tribus Galeria perhaps a little further 
W., on the lower course of the stream now known as 
Galera, and the Fabia perhaps on the Cremera towards 
Veii. We know that the pagus Lemonius was on the Via 
Latina, and that the Pupinian tribe dwelt between Tus- 
culum and the city, while the Papirian possibly lived 
nearer Tusculum, as it was to this tribe that the Roman 
citizens in Tusculum belonged in later days. It is pos- 
sible that the Camilian was situated in the direction of 
Tibur, inasmuch as this town was afterwards enrolled 
in this tribe. The Claudian tribe, probably the last of 


the sixteen older tribus rusticae, was, according to tradi- _ 


tion, founded in 504 B.c. Its territory lay beyond the ~ 
Anio between Fidenae and Ficulea (Liv. ii. 16; Dion. Hal. — 


v. 40). The locality of the pagi round which the other — 


tribes were grouped is not known to us. 

With the earliest extensions of the Roman territory 
coincided the first beginnings of the Roman road 
system. 

After the Latin communities on the lower Anio had 


fallen under the dominion of Rome, we may well believe 4 
that the first portion of the Via Salaria, leading to : 


Antemnae, Fidenae, and Crustumerium, came into exist- 
ence. The formation (according to the traditional dating 
in 495 or 471 B.c.) of the tribus Clustumina (the only one _ 
of the earlier twenty-one tribes which bears a local name) _ 


is both a consequence of an extension of territory and 4 
of the establishment of the assembly of the plebs by — 


tribes, for which an inequality of the total number of ~ 
divisions was desirable (Mommsen, History of Rome, i. — 
860). The correlative of the Via Salaria was the Via — 
Campana, so called because it led past the grove of the © 
Arvales, along the right bank of the Tiber to the campus 
30 Bs 


GENERAL INTRODUCTION 


Salinarum Romanarum,' the salt-marshes, from which the 
Via Salaria took its name, inasmuch as it was the route 
by which Sabine traders came from the interior to fetch 
the salt. To this period would also belong the Via Ficu- 
lensis, which led to Ficulea,? afterwards prolonged to 
Nomentum, and the Via Collatina, which led to Collatia. 
Gabii, too, became Roman in fairly early times, though at 
what period is uncertain, and with its subjugation must 
have originated the Via Gabina,® afterwards prolonged to 
Praeneste. The Via Latina is, like the Via Appia, obvi- 
ously a military highway ruled straight on the map, and 
therefore of artificial origin. Its establishment must be 
connected with the fighting with the Aequi for the pass of 
Algidus in the fifth and fourth centuries B.c. 

The three primitive roads to the Alban Hills were 
probably the original road to Tusculum, which later 
became the first part of the Via Labicana: the Via Castri- 
moeniensis, which led to Castrimoenium, the modern 
Marino; and a road which led to Alba Longa, probably 
more or less along the line of the first 12 miles of the Via 
Appia. The road to Satricum (Conca) is also of very 
ancient origin. Aerial photography may be expected to 
throw light upon this whole question. 

Tradition places the foundation of the Latin colony 
at Signia as early as 495 B.c., while Norba is said to have 
received a colony three years later. This is in accord 
with the archaeological evidence, and so the magnificent 
walls of polygonal blocks of limestone must be taken to 
be of Roman date. This principle must probably be 
widely extended. The Via Salaria can hardly have 
existed as a Roman highroad before the fall of Fidenae 
(traditionally placed in 428 B.c.), but not long after the 
capture of this outpost of Veii the chief city itself fell 


1 The ancient name is known from an inscription discovered in 
1888 (Lanciani, Bull. Comm. 1888, 83 ; Ruins and Excavatons, 530) 
which mentions the ‘ corpus saccariorum salariorum,’’ who were 


- employed there as porters. 


2 Liv. iii. 52; C.I.L. xiv. 447. See Dessau, Inscr. Lat. Sel. 6178. 
3 Liv. ii. 11; i1i.6; v. 49. 


31 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES q 


(396 B.c.) and a road (still traceable) was probably made — 
thither. There was also probably a road to Caere in ~ 
early times, inasmuch as we hear of the flight of the 
Vestals thither in 389 B.c. ‘4 

The origin of the rest of the roads is no doubt to be © 
connected with the gradual establishment of the Latin — 
League. We find that while the later (long-distance) roads _ 
bear as a rule the name of their constructor, all the short- 4 
distance roads on the left bank of the Tiber bear the names 9 
of towns which belong to it—Nomentum, Tibur, Collatia, — 
Praeneste, Labici, Ardea, Laurentum. The Via Pedana, — 
leading to Pedum, is only known to us from an inscription — 
(Bull. Soc. Antiquaires de France, 1905, 177 ) discovered in — 
Tunisia in 1905, and may be of much later origin, and was — 
a branch of the Via Praenestina. The road to Bovillae ~ 
must have been prolonged to Aricia, Lanuvium, and a 
Velitrae, and thence to Cora, Norba, and Setia. 4 

We can trace the advance of the Roman supremacy — 
with greater ease after 387 B.c., inasmuch as from this — 
year (adopting the traditional dating for what it is worth) — 
until 299 B.c. every accession of territory is marked by 4 
the foundation of a group of new tribes; the limit of — 
thirty-five in all was reached in the latter year. In 387, ; 
after the departure of the Gauls, Southern Etruria was . 
conquered and four new tribes were formed—the Arnensis — 
(probably derived from Aro, the modern Arrone—though ~ 
the ancient name does not occur in literature—the stream — 
which forms the outlet to the lake of Bracciano +), Saba- a 
tina (taking its name from this very lake), Stellatina q 
(named from the Campus Stellatinus, near Capena: cf. 4 
Festus, p. 348, Miill.), and Tromentina (which, Festus — 
tells us, was so called from the Campus Tromentus, the ~ 
situation of which we do not know). 4 

Four years later comes the foundation of the Latin — 
colonies of Sutrium and Nepet. In 3858 B.c. Roman 
preponderance in the Pomptine territory was shown — 
by the formation of the tribus Pomptina and Publilia, 
while in 338 and 3829 respectively Antium and Tarracina q 

1 Kubitschek in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyclopddie, ii. 1204. 
32 F 


o, 


GENERAL INTRODUCTION 


became colonies of Roman citizens, the former having 
been founded as a Latin colony in 494 B.c. 

After the dissolution of the Latin League, which followed 
upon the defeat of the united forces of the Samnites and 
of those Latin and Volscian cities which had revolted 
against Rome, two new tribes, Maecia and Scaptia,! were 
created in 332 B.c. in connexion with the distribution of 
the newly acquired lands (Mommsen, History, i. 462). 
A further advance in the same direction, ending in the 
capture of Privernum in 829 B.c., is marked by the estab- 
lishment in 318 B.c. of the tribus Oufentina (from the 
river Ufens, which runs below Setia, now Sezze, and 
Privernum, now Piperno) and the tribus Falerna (in 
the ager Falernus), while the foundation of the colonies 
of Cales (834) and Fregellae (828) secured the newly won 
South Volscian and Campanian territories, and led no doubt 
to a prolongation of the Via Latina. The moment had 
now come for the pushing forward of the Via Appia, which 
had perhaps run as far as Terracina in 348 B.c., but was 
now prolonged into the heart of the newly conquered 
territory of Campania to Capua, constructed (munita) 
in 312 B.c. (Liv. ix. 29; Frontinus de aquis, i. 5), but appar- 
ently not paved till 292 3B.c., and even then with silex 
only from the temple of Mars, a mile beyond the Porta 
Capena, to Bovillae, a footpath in saxum quadratum being 
considered sufficient from the gate to the temple (Liv. x. 
23, 47) until 189 B.c. (Liv. xxxviil. 28). 

In 291, after the colonisation of Horace’s birthplace, 


Venusia, with the large number of 20,000 settlers, it was 


doubtless taken as far as this town, Beneventum, half-way 


between Capua and Venusia, serving as a fortress to 


guard the road, and in 264 it was prolonged to Taranto 
and Brindisi. Other improvements were very likely made 


fifteen years later (in 174 8B.c.). Cf. Liv. xli. 27: Censores 


vias sternendas silice in urbe, glarea extra urbem substruendas 


1 Festus tells us (p. 186, Miill.) that the Maecia derived its name 
a@ quodam castro. Scaptia was the only member of the Latin League 


that gave its name to a tribe. 


Cc 33 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 4 


marginandasque primi omnium locaverunt, pontesque multis B 
locis faciendos. F 

The Via Appia was always regarded as the first and 
best of Roman roads—Strabo classes it with the Latina — 
and Valeria among the chief roads of Latium, probably 
partly owing to the fact that these three roads served the 
districts most in favour as country residences in his day. © 
Compare also the enthusiastic description of Procopius — 
(Bell. Goth. i. 14). Statius (Silvae, ii. 2) has called it 
regina viarum, and even now the Roman peasants often 
speak of an ancient paved road as via appia. 

Its construction may fairly be taken to mark the period 
at which the roads of which we have spoken, hitherto — 
probably mere tracks, began to be transformed into real 
highways. In the same year (312) the colony of Interamna 
Lirenas was founded, while Luceria, Suessa, and Saticula 
had been established a year or two previously. Sora 
followed nine years later. It seems to me clear that the 
Via Latina must have existed before the Appia. 

In 299 z.c. further successes led to the establishment of 
two new tribes—the Teretina in the upper valley of the 
Trerus (Sacco) and the Aniensis, in the upper valley of 
the Anio—while to about the same time we must attribute 
the construction of two new military roads, both secured 
by fortresses. The southern road, the Via Valeria, which 
perhaps owes its name to the censor of 305 B.c., M. 
Valerius Maximus (Liv. ix. 48), led to Carsioli and Alba — 
Fucens (founded as Latin colonies respectively in 298 
and 308 B.c.), whence it was extended to Corfinium before ~ 
the time of Strabo (v. 8. 11) and to the Adriatic under the — 
Emperor Claudius, and the northern (afterwards the Via — 
Flaminia) to Narnia (founded as a Latin colony in 299 B.c.). — 
There is little doubt that the formation of the tribus ’ 

& 


chee ae 1 tl 
ee ee ee ee 


Quirina (deriving its name possibly from the town of 
Cures) and the tribus Velina (from the river Velinus, which ~ 
forms the well-known waterfalls near Terni) is to be con- — 
nected with the construction of the latter highroad, though 
the dates are not certainly known. But the construction ~ 
of the Via Flaminia as a whole is due to C. Flaminius, the 
bd 


GENERAL INTRODUCTION 


censor of 220 B.c., after the subjugation of the Boii and 
Insubres?; while of the other roads on the right bank 
of the Tiber, the Via Clodia, the earliest, is of unknown 
date; the Via Aurelia is dated by Mommsen about 177 B.c.,? 
though there was apparently a road to Caere in 389 B.c. 
(and indeed there must have been a route long before, in 
the time of the Etruscan kings), when the Vestals fled 
there at the time of the Gaulish invasion: while there 
was a route from Rome to Vada Volaterrana and Luna in 
241 B.c. The line of the Via Cassia must have been used 
for the purposes of the campaign of 217 B.c., especially 
as the road from Arretium (Arezzo) to Bononia (Bologna) 
was made in 189 B.c. As there is no Cassius in the list of 
consuls between 486 and 171 B.c., we must suppose that 
it already existed, and took its name from the consul 
of 171 B.c., who reconstructed it, losing whatever name 
it had previously possessed. 

Having traced the development of the road system, 
let us now consider how it was managed during the Repub- 
lican period. The roads were far too important to be 
given up to the management of the municipal officials 
of the various towns through which they passed, and 
were kept in the hands of the central administration. 
The censors naturally had the management of this depart- 
ment, as responsible for the letting of all contracts for 
public works. It was by censors that the Via Appia, the 
Via Flaminia, and the Via Aemilia in Etruria were con- 
structed, and we hear, further, of occasions on which their 
activity was exercised more generally in making roads 
across the country at the public expense, or in having 
the existing roads paved with gravel, and providing for 
the construction of bridges. Even at Pisaurum (174 B.c., 
Liv. xli. 27) the censors (who were very active) let out a 
paving contract. But the tendency to delegate the 
extra-urban functions of the censors to higher officials 
representing them comes out very clearly, especially 


1 Ashby and Fell in Journal of Roman Studies, xi. 125. : 
2 History of Rome, i. 486n. Anziani in Mélanges de Ecole 
Francaise, xxxili. (1913) 242. 
35 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


when the roads to be built were at some distance from — 
Rome. This was the case in Cisalpine Gaul, where the — 
roads were constructed by consuls ? often during or as the | 
sequel to a campaign. It is from this fact that we get 
the names Via Consularis and Via Praetoria for the great — 
roads, which vary, as we are told, according to whether : 
their builder was a man of consular or of praetorian rank, — 
though of the latter no cases are known in Italy. In a 
number of cases, however, where the road bears the name P 
of a family, we do not know when or by whom, whether © 
by a censor, a consul, or a praetor, it was constructed ; and — 
the fact that a road bears the name of a family does not 
always mean that it is a road of first-class importance, — 
though the converse—that no road of great importance 
bears the name of a town—is true, as we have already — 
seen. 4 
The censors were not even exclusively responsible for — 
the maintenance of the roads in good order. The earliest — 
milestone known to us—one of those of the Via Appia — 
at Mesa (ad Medias) in the Pomptine Marshes—bears the 
names of two aediles, though the competence of the aediles” 
strictly ended at the first milestone (Mommsen, Staats- 
recht, i. p. 68): it probably belongs to the end of the 
fifth century of Rome, i.e. to about 255 B.c. The eleventh 3 
milestone of the Via Ostiensis, found near Malafede and 
preserved in the Lateran Museum, was erected by a plebeian — 
aedile, and so was the thirtieth milestone of the Via 
Tiberina from Nazzano; while the thirteenth milestone 
of the Via Praenestina (infra, p. 186) was erected by two 
curule aediles.2. The original milestones were placed by 
the constructor of the road. | : 

According to Plutarch, C. Gracchus was the great 
organiser of the Roman road system. “ His chief care,” 
he says, “‘ was the construction of roads, in which he paid 
regard both to its useful and its ornamental side. For 


1 Also with the Via Caecilia, a road which left the Salaria at about 
the thirty-fifth mile and ran across the mountains to the Adriatic, 
and which was not improbably constructed by C. Caecilius Metellus 
Diadematus (consul 117 B.c.). : q 

2 These are all now published in C.J.L. i? 2. 21, 22, 829, 833. 


36 


GENERAL INTRODUCTION 


they were driven straight across country, regardless of 
obstacles, paved with smoothed stone, and strengthened 
with mounds of rammed earth. The hollows were filled, 
the torrents and ravines which cut the line of the road 
spanned by bridges, so that the height on each side was 
the same, and the whole work had a regular and elegant 
appearance. Further, he measured the whole road by 
miles, and set up stone pillars to mark the distances. 
And he disposed other stones at a less distance from each 
other on each side of the road, so that it might be easier 
for riders to mount from them without requiring a mount- 
ing-block.”’ 

As a result perhaps of his activity we find that con- 
siderable extensions of the road system were made in Italy 
and in the provinces at the end of the second century B.c. 
And at some period in the seventh century of the city— 
not later than 92 B.c.—a series of curatores viarum e lege 
Visellia appear. This office was not a part of the regular 
succession of offices, and in fact might be held in con- 
junction with the tribunate, aedileship, praetorship, or 
consulship. The repairs to the Via Caecilia recorded in 
an inscription now existing in the Museo delle Terme 
were carried out under the supervision of a tribune as 
curator viarum. Julius Caesar was curator of the Via 
Appia while aedile, Minucius Thermus, Cicero’s friend, of 
the Flaminia between the praetorship and the consulship. 

The foundation of the Roman Empire marks the great 
change in this, as in other parts of the administration. 
Augustus in 27 B.c. had to take exceptional measures to 
get the roads into order. We are told by Dio Cassius that, 
finding them in bad condition, he allotted them among 
various senators to restore at their own expense, taking 
over the Via Flaminia himself—and subsequently also the 
other roads, as the senators did not care to spend money 
upon them. 


1 Compare Strabo, v. 3. 8, who speaks of the roads as made by 
cutting through hills and filling up valleys ; and Appian (B.C. i. 23), 
who speaks of the army of contractors and workmen who served 
under him. 


37 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


According to Suetonius, on the other hand, the roads _ 
were allotted among those who had enjoyed the honour — 
of a triumph, the necessary funds being drawn from the ~ 


booty taken. The inscription on the arch at Rimini — 


records that it was erected in his honour in the same year — 
(27 B.c.) because on his initiative and at his expense the 
Via Flaminia and the other most frequented roads of 
Italy had been put into order (munitis). This word — 
munire, which is always used, is instructive—it means © 
literally to wall (munia or moenia is the word used for 
city walls) or fortify, and it gives some idea of the scale © 


upon which they were constructed. Dionysius of Hali- 


carnassus, the historian, and Strabo, the geographer, — 
both of whom knew the Rome of Augustus—they came ~ 
to it soon after the Battle of Actium—speak of the roads, — 
the aqueducts, and the drains as the most splendid works — 
of Rome in which her power was most strikingly displayed. — 

The only bridges not repaired upon the Via Flaminia — 
in 27 B.c. were the Pons Mulvius (Ponte Molle) and a Pons — 
Minucius (site unknown). The coins which record this — 
restoration of the road depict, nevertheless, the Pons © 
Mulvius, but this is owing to the fact that a triumphal — 
arch was erected here as well as at Rimini. q 

In 20 z.c. Augustus took over the care of the roads — 
formally, and erected the much-discussed milliarium — 
aureum in the Forum. This was not the starting-point — 
of all the roads of the Empire, in the sense that it marked, — 
as we might say, mile 0; for the numbering of the miles © 
on each of the roads began from the gate of the Serviam ~ 
wall from which it issued. It probably merely gave the — 
distances along the chief roads to the most important — 
places in the Roman Empire. 4 

Augustus delegated his functions to others, curators — 
chosen from among those who had held the praetorship, — 
in the case of the more important roads,! while those of — 
lesser importance were either grouped under the roads of © 


1 There is only one known instance of the holding of the cura 
of a road (the Via Aemilia) after the consulship (Bull. Com. 1891, 
89; C.I.L. iii. 4018); this was under Vespasian. * 
38 


GENERAL INTRODUCTION 


the first class with which they were connected, or put 
under separate curators or procurators of equestrian rank. 
In the case of two roads—Aemilia and Flaminia—we hear 
of the existence of sub-curators of equestrian rank. The 
viae vicinales remained under the control of the municipal 
authorities, the distinction between them and the State 
roads (viae publicae) being that the latter were under the 
control of curatores. 

These curators had authority up to the walls of Rome, 
so that there was no longer any reason for the existence 
of the duoviri, who had charge of the roads within 1 mile of 
the city—though we do hear of the special appointment 
of commissioners for limited periods for the suburban 
roads. They were not apparently always careful in the 
performance of their duties—we hear of complaints being 
made against them by the Senate in the time of Tiberius 
(Tac. Ann. iii. 31), and Caligula was able to gain large 
sums to satisfy his extravagance by having them brought 
to trial for misuse of public funds (Dio. Cass. lix. 15). 

From the time of Nerva we find that the curatores 
frequently (though not necessarily) had also to take 
charge of the alimentary institutions for which Nerva was 
responsible. These are so remarkable as to deserve a 
word. For each town which received the benefit of the 
endowment a sum of money was set aside and lent to 
landed proprietors, and the annual interest which it 
produced formed support of the charity, which was in- 
tended to help education of children of poor parents. 
The investment, resting on land, was secure, and the 
State undertook not to withdraw the loan. 

The unity of the two officers was frequent but not neces- 
sary ; we find, e.g., praefects alumentorum of Flaminia and 
Aemilia without care of roads so as to distribute the 
work. An alternative method was to appoint subcuratores 
viae et alimentorum, as was done with these two very 
roads, to help the curatores. And in districts not traversed 
by roads of first-class importance, separate praefectt for 
alimenta existed. 

The duties of these officials were to see that the road 

39 


4A 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


was kept in repair, that there was no hindering of access 
nor encroachment by building upon them, and that they 
were not damaged by drains, etc., constructed by private 
persons. ‘They were also empowered to punish fraudulent 
extortions by Customs officials. We have many inscriptions 
in which the curatorship of a road is part of the regular 
succession of offices, finding place after the praetorship, 
especially of the second and third centuries: after that 
they disappear. Curatores are not heard of after A.D. 315, 
and the office seems to have disappeared as a consequence 
of the administrative changes of Diocletian and Con- 
stantine. 

The praefecti praetorio, who had for some time controlled 
the postal administration,! now took up the general control 
of contractors for work on roads, and thus superseded the 
curatores. , 

The first use of the name of a road as that of a district 
is when Augustus used Aemilia as a name of one of the 
regions into which he divided Italy. But Flaminia 
came into use later from being the name of an alimentary 
district; thus we get a corrector Flaminiae et Picent 
(C.I.L. xiv. 3594). 

The milestones, however, in Imperial times all bear 
the Emperor’s name, and not titles of any other official. 
Augustus, Trajan, and Maxentius are responsible for a great 
many: those of the earlier emperors are large, round 
masses of travertine; we also get neat columns of marble, 


especially near Rome (e.g. the first and seventh of the _ 


Via Appia on the balustrade of the Capitol), and later 
still small marble columns with Maxentius’ inscription 
rudely scrawled upon them (no other word describes the 
sprawling carelessness of this period). Milestones near 
Rome are rather scarce, except in museums: and just 
beyond Decimo, on the Via Laurentina, is the only place 
where one may still be seen in situ—the eleventh (of 


* The postal administration—which involved providing horses 
and vehicles for Imperial officials on journeys—for which first 
communities and then, as this led to abuses and exactions, the 
Imperial treasury paid—was separately managed by other officials. 
40 


GENERAL INTRODUCTION 


Tiberius), while the stone set up by Maxentius is in the 

courtyard of the Casale or farmhouse which perpetuates 

the name of the tenth mile, a little nearer Rome. 

There are other instances besides this of the perpetua- 

tion of distance names—the Ponte di Nona and the Valle 

Vigesimo, at the ninth and twentieth mile of the Via 

Praenestina. The posting stations were often named by 
distances, if there was no town near, e.g. ad Quintanas 

on the Via Labicana, and ad Decimum on the Via Latina ; 
- this latter in turn gave its name to a village, the inhabitants 
of which were called Decimienses. Such names are, both 
in Italy and elsewhere, used in the Itineraries, official 
documents giving the distances along the roads of the 

Roman Empire. These are, it need hardly be said, 
preserved to us only in copies. The most important are 
the Itinerarium Antonini—it is not certain which emperor 
is referred to, but probably Caracalla—which is probably 
an unskilful excerpt from a map!; and the Tabula 
 Peutingerana, a large map of the roads of the Empire, 
discovered in a convent library in 1494 by Conrad Peutinger 
and now in Vienna—no less than 21 feet 3 inches long and 
only 1 foot wide—so that there is great distortion. It 
was copied, no doubt, from an official document, the date 
of which is uncertain. 

The Ravenna Itinerary is very close to it, and the follow- 
ing pedigree is suggested by Kubitschek * :— 


Map (of the world) A. 


Antonine Map B. 
Itinerary | 


Anon. Ravenn. Tab. Peut. 


Still more valuable documents, because contemporary, 
are the four silver cups found at Vicarello, near the lake 


1 Cf. the Ravenna Itinerary, where this is expressly stated. 
2 Oesterreiche Jahreshefte, v. (1902) 81. 
Al 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES — 


of Bracciano, which give the itinerary from Gades (Cadiz) 
to Rome by land; traversing Italy by the Via Flaminia. 
They probably belong to the time of Trajan. 

The main arteries of traffic in the neighbourhood of 
Rome, when the system was completed, came to fall 
into two different classes—the short-distance roads, 
which were never prolonged beyond the town which they 
had been intended to serve, and therefore continued to 
bear its name; and the long-distance roads, which had 
originally performed the same function, but had grown 
into military and commercial highways, and bore the 
name of the man who was responsible for their construction 
as such. 


Besides these main thoroughfares, the Roman Campagna > 
was well provided with branch roads, viae vicinales or — 
deverticula or ramuli, called also by Livy transversi © 
limites (xxii. 1. 2) or transversi tramites (ii. 89). The less — 
important were under the charge of local officials, the © 
magistri pagorum. These differ from the main roads — 
in width but not in construction: they are sometimes _ 
only 8 Roman feet in width, whereas the former run — 
from 14 to 15 feet wide in open country, going up to 18 | 
on a steep hill, 21 on a bridge (the Ponte di Nona), or — 
80 (the maximum) on the great embankments of the Via — 
Appia below Aricia and the Via Flaminia at the Muro del — 
Peccato, and also on the bridge over the Almo on the Via — 


Ostiensis, half-way to S. Paolo fuori le Mura. 


We have a description in Vitruvius of how a road-bed — 
should theoretically be laid, and a section corresponding — 
to this description has been found on the Via Appia. — 
But in the vast majority of cases in the Roman Campagna ~ 
the paving-stones, massive polygonal blocks of lava — 
(known as selce, and still used for paving in Rome), are — 
laid almost direct on the volcanic soil or rock, and I have q 
hardly ever seen what might be called the ideal or theo- — 
retical section in any Roman road. The same is the case | 
in the calcareous mountains east of Rome, where limestone — 


paving-blocks are often used. 


42 


Ee 


In both cases, even when the surface was well levelled, a 


GENERAL INTRODUCTION 


the blocks new and well laid, and the joints close, the 
jarring must have been considerable. This would no 
doubt be mitigated for travellers by having the carts 
slung on thongs. Examples of gravelled roads are rare, 
e.g. the Via Ostiensis (between the 13th and 14th kilo- 
metres).1 There is often an edging (crepido), sometimes 
of irregular blocks of selce, like small paving-stones, 

sometimes of rectangular blocks of stone—not only on 
bridges but elsewhere. The best instance of parapets 
that I know is on the Via Flaminia, a little beyond the 
‘railway station of Civita Castellana, where the blocks 
measure 1 foot 8 inches thick by 2 feet 2 inches high, 
and there are higher blocks standing vertically at intervals 
of 25 metres, each 3 feet high and 2 wide. 

Of bridges there are many examples, great and small. 
Cuttings through the hills are very frequent, and often 
provide, in the absence of excavation, the only evidence 
by which the course of a road can be traced. They are, 


- more often than not, avoided by the mediaeval road, 


which the modern line generally follows. I suppose that, 
on the principle of corruptio optimi pessima, nothing would 
be so hard an obstacle to negotiate as a Roman road 
the pavement of which had been thoroughly dislocated, 
nor anything so difficult to repair. It was probably 
much easier, when it was necessary to mend the road, 
as, for example, on the occasion of a papal jubilee, to 
break the old paving-stones to pieces and make a new 
track close by. On these occasions tombs also fell a 
prey to the roadmenders. To cuttings correspond steep 
gradients and the observance of the direct line from point 
to point. But the principle of straightness was by no 
means uniformly observed. The Via Flaminia and the 
Via Labicana are two striking instances to the contrary. 
In portions of the course of the former the only thing 
to do was to keep to the watershed between two deep 
ravines; while the constructors of the latter seem to 
have taken things as they found them and to have troubled 
little about engineering works. 


1 Not. Scavi. 1913, 9. 
43 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


A difficulty that confronts us at once is in regard to 
dating. It was a comfortable doctrine that all buildings 
in opus quadratum, or masonry of hewn stones, belonged 
to the Republican period; but it will not hold water. 
On the other hand, we do know that neither it nor opus 
reticulatum can be placed as late as the time of Septimius 
Severus: and there is now little doubt that some of the 
brick bridges near Rome belong to the Roman period. 
We have, of course, a whole series of bridges in brick- 
faced concrete on the Via Traiana between Benevento 
and Bari. | 

To the Republic we may assign a few buildings, mostly 
of a sacred character—the temple at Gabii, the great 
substructions and other buildings connected with the 
temples of Fortune at Praeneste and Hercules at Tibur, 
a certain number of tombs and bridges—some farmhouses 
or villae rusticae—and that is about all. 

The last century of the Republic with its great increase 
in wealth and luxury must have seen the erection of 
many of the great villas in the territory of Tusculum 
and Tibur. But it was under Augustus that the first 
great increase in prosperity came. He regulated the 
course of the Tiber both above and below Rome—it has 
been ascertained that the authority of the curatores of 
Tiberius extended as far as Ostia—and restored the 
aqueducts which supplied the city. As to the highroads, 
he caused them to be repaired by others, but took on the 
care of the Via Flaminia himself. 


With him began an era of Imperial benefactions to 
the towns of Italy—Otricoli is a striking example of a 


small country town in which the greater part of the public 
buildings belong to his reign—and temples of Rome and 
Augustus were dedicated as near as Terracina. 7 

These country towns were governed by two judicial 
magistrates and two officials in charge of public works 
(duumvirt ture dicundo and dwumviri aediles), who had 
special functions, like those of the Roman censors, every 
fifth year (quinquennales), and by a town council (decuriones 
or curiales). The Augustales were a body devoted to the 
44, 


: 


GENERAL INTRODUCTION 


worship of the Emperor—usually a committee of six. The 
trade guilds (collegia) also owe their rise in importance 
to this period. Many of the holders of these offices were 
people in a humble condition of life—often freedmen— 
and there was no doubt a good deal of vanity and naive 
pomposity, such as Horace records in the case of the 
official at Fundi on his famous journey to Brundusium. 

After the troublous years which followed the death of 
Nero, Vespasian’s firm hand restored peace to Italy: and 
many of the milestones were erected by him. 

Even more was done by Trajan: and that there was 
a general increase in prosperity in the early second century 
A.D., which continued until the troublous times which 
followed the fall of the Severi, is obvious from inscriptions 
and other records, which show that the revival was general 
all through Italy. That the district round Rome was 
favourably affected seems clear from the fact that a very 
large proportion of the remains of villas in the Campagna 
can be assigned to that period by the consular dates on 
the stamped bricks which are found in them. 

There must, however, have been few parts of it which 
were not occupied by the country residences of wealthy 
Romans, by the parks and gardens connected with them, 
or by cultivation. Of villages we find comparatively very 
few, even in those times of well-being, except in the sur- 
rounding hills: and even in the classical period we hear 
that many of the old and famous cities of Latium had 
fallen into decay, though in a good many cases there is 
some poetical exaggeration in the contrast between their 
former greatness and their comparative unimportance in 
the writer’s own day. 

In a.p. 292, when the land tax was introduced into 
Italy, the first region of Augustus obtained the name of 
provincia Campania. Later on the name Latium entirely 
disappeared, and the name Campania extended as far as 
Veii and the Via Aurelia, whence the mediaeval and modern 
name Campagna di Roma. ) 

It was only in the fourth and fifth centuries that here, 
as elsewhere, the little positions of dignity which had 

A5 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES — 


given pleasure to those who held them, such as the election 
to a seat in the municipal curia and the membership of 
or the holding of some honour in a trade guild, began, 
under the oppressive legislation of the Empire of that 
period, to be an intolerable charge. The curiales began 


to be heavily taxed, and the members of guilds and the — 


cultivators found life so burdensome that they sought in 
any way they could to escape—but the clutches of the 
State were too strong for them. | 

The donation made by Constantine to various churches 
of Rome of numerous estates belonging to the patrimonium 
Caesaris in the neighbourhood of Rome was of great 
historical importance, as being the origin of the territorial 
dominion of the Papacy. His example was followed by 
others, so that the Church property in the Campagna 
soon became considerable ; and from the seventh century 
onwards, owing to the immunities and privileges which 
the Church enjoyed, especially its freedom from the taxes 
which weighed the Empire down, a certain revival of 
prosperity occurred. The invasions of the barbarian 
hordes, of course, produced a good deal of damage: but 
the formation of centres (domuscultae) in the eighth and 


ninth centuries was a fact of great importance—the — 


inhabitants, indeed, formed the mediaeval militia of the 
Papacy. Smaller centres (the colonia—often formed in 
the remains of an ancient villa—the curtis or curia, the 
castrum,* the casale) grew up later. We may note that, 


owing to the growth of the Temporal Power, there was ; 


never a dux Romae dependent on the Exarchate of Ravenna, 
similar to those established by Narses in the other districts 
of Italy. 

The papal influence was also retained by means of the 


suburban bishoprics, which took their rise as early as 


the fourth and fifth centuries a.p. 
The rise of the democratic Commune of Rome 2 about 


1 Pratica is described in 1385 as castrum olim, nunc reducti ad 
casale quod vocatur Patrica (Lanciani in Mon. Lincei, xiii. (1913) 178). 

* The Commune of Rome as such seems to have been in existence 
in 999 at least. 


46 


GENERAL INTRODUCTION 


1148, and of the various trade corporations which we 
already find in the early eleventh century, led to struggles 
with the Papacy; the Commune of Rome made various 
attempts to exercise supremacy in the Campagna, and 
levied various taxes from the twelfth century until the 
fifteenth. The Commune also tried to restrict the 
power of the barons, who, in the thirteenth century 
especially, though we find them feudatories of the Holy 
See from the tenth century onwards, threatened to become 
' masters of the whole territory, which is still dotted over 
_with their castles and towers. Their dominions can be 
_ traced as following strategic lines, along the ancient roads, 
_ to castles far outside the city, with intermediate fortified 
_ posts. 

A little later we find treaties between the barons and 
_ the villages for the protection of the latter, which thus 
| became dependent on the various great families, which 
'did not begin to acquire generic titles (duke, prince, 
| count) until the fourteenth century. 

The feudal system in the Campagna did considerable 
| damage from the economic point of view, and the wars 
| and depredations of the barons were in large measure the 
cause of its depopulation: but this in mediaeval times 
| was less serious than in comparatively recent days. 
| This is indicated by a list of the villages of the Campagna 
| dating from the fourteenth century, and giving the 
| amount of salt to be purchased by each village from the 
' Commune of Rome, which had a monopoly of the supply 
| of salt from the marshes of Ostia. The population can 
be inferred from this, and is found to be about equal 
| to that of recent times, but was differently distributed, 
| some of the smaller centres having disappeared at the 
_ expense of the town. In the interval some of the smaller 
' centres have perished, while the towns have grown at 
| their expense. We find Pope Sixtus IV, in a bull of 1476, 
lamenting the preponderance of pasturage and attempting 
| to revive agriculture. 

| It is interesting to note that the depopulation of certain 
| parts of the Campagna caused by the prevalence of malaria 
47 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES — 


was probably at its worst in the seventeenth and eighteenth ~ 
centuries. We have, it is true, notices of malaria in the © 
Middle Ages: and certainly from the accounts of the 
hunting expeditions of the fifteenth and sixteenth cen- — 
turies we know that there was more woodland, especially — 
on the right bank of the Tiber, than at the present day. 
The actual remains of mediaeval buildings in the 
Campagna are numerous and important. It contains a | 
large number of castles and towers. 2 
The oldest castle is that of Grotta Marozza, on the 
prolongation of the Via Nomentana, which belongs to the © 
eleventh century: but the majority were erected in © 
the thirteenth. Most of them have square towers, and 
the round tower did not come into vogue until the 
fifteenth century. The name Castelli Romani, applied to — 
the villages of the Alban Hills, comes from the emigration — 
in the fourteenth century from Rome to these villages, — 
those inhabiting quarters of Rome belonging to the barons ~ 
emigrating to the villages which were ren under | 
their protection. : 
The isolated towers, which are especially common, — 
form indeed quite a feature of the landscape—a series of © 
them follows the sea-coast (most of these were constructed — 
or renewed in the time of Pius IV and Pius V). Others, — 
inland, of earlier date (thirteenth and fourteenth centuries) — 
were used as watch-towers and for signalling, as outposts — 
to the various castles: while others, often situated on the — 
highroads, marked the limits of the various jurisdictions— ~ 
of bishops, convents and abbeys, of the Pope and the — 
Commune, and of the barons: and others again guarded ~ 
the valleys, preventing the passage along them. Many, ~ 
too, are the country churches, the earliest of which date — 
in origin from the third century, frequently bearing the 
name of the religious body in Rome to which they belonged, 
and the localities called after saints—S. Silvester being a — 
name especially frequent in wooded hill-tops, and San ~ 
Cesareo occurring in places where a villa or a cult of — 
the Caesars had existed—so that the saints come to take 
the place of the pagan deities. We often find the most 
48. . 


GENERAL INTRODUCTION 


curious perversions of names little understood, which thus 
became corrupted in common use. Some of the country 
inns still mark the site of the Roman post-stations on the 
highroads. 

In the Middle Ages it was principally Ostia that was 
ransacked for building material: though everywhere a 
good deal of damage must have been done to the buildings 
of the Campagna by the search for marble, both for burn- 
ing into lime and for use elsewhere. Excavation for 
works of art only began in the Renaissance—though that 
did not mean that the damage ceased, but rather the 
contrary. 

In the Renaissance, it is true, falls the erection of many 
fine villas in the neighbourhood of Rome—not only in 
the hills round the Campagna but even in certain places 
in the lower ground, e.g. those of Julius II at La Magliana 
and of Cardinal Trivulzio at Salone, and these continued 

_to be frequented until the end of the eighteenth century, 
when the French Revolution dealt a fatal blow to the 
prosperity of the Roman nobility. 

The ‘“‘ modern ”’ period of the history of the Campagna 
Romana begins with the sixteenth century. We may 
note, among other points, the existence of vineyards at 

various places in the nefghbourhood of Rome in the 
- sixteenth century which have since entirely disappeared, 
and the numerous large and imposing farmhouses con- 
structed in the Campagna at the end of the seventeenth 
century. It was then, as we have seen, that the worst 
period in its history came, and it extended over the first 
half at least, if not the whole, of the nineteenth century. 
There was a flood of literature on the subject, but, except 
for the draining of the Pomptine Marshes by Pius VI— 
and that on a partially mistaken system—little that was 
practical was done. But since the beginning of the 
present century the growth of cultivation is most re- 
markable, for now that the cause of malaria is known it 
can effectively be prevented. The discovery, made in 
1900, that it is propagated by the Anopheles claviger, a 
mosquito which remains inactive by day, was epoch- 

D — 49 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


making: it has rendered it possible to combat this scourge 
(about the cause of which the most diverse theories had 
previously been propounded) upon a definite plan. The 
marshes where it breeds were drained, or the watercourses 
accelerated—for the larvae cannot live in water that 
runs at more than a mile an hour. The houses are pro- 
tected by fine mosquito-proof wire-netting, and the water 
supply is improved; while quinine, the great specific 
both as a prophylactic and as a cure, is now sold cheaply 
by the State. Much remains to be done, and many of 
the more ignorant or careless will not adopt preventive 
measures: but it was proved how effective these are 
when rigorously applied at the British rest-camp at 
Taranto during the war, where malaria was practically 
eliminated. : 

A law carried in 1908 for the improvement (Bonifica) 
of the Agro Romano (the territory of the Commune of 
Rome beyond the immediate outskirts of the city, which, 
unlike that of most other cities, extends a long way out, 
as far as the lower limits of the territory of the various 
hill villages) compels the proprietors of land within a 
radius of some 6 miles of the city to cultivate their lands 
in a productive manner under penalty of expropriation : 
and though until recent’ years it was not enforced with 
any great stringency, it is now anything but a dead-letter, 
and its results are very apparent. Towards the Alban 
Hills especially there is now only a short interval—and 
in some places none at all—between the cultivation 
spreading outwards from Rome and that extending down- 
wards from the hills. New farmhouses are springing up 
everywhere, and the aspect of the Campagna has com- 
pletely changed. Whereas twenty years ago the road 
system resembled a starfish, the main roads being entirely 
unconnected, it is now more like a spider’s web. 

On the right bank of the Tiber is a much less fertile 
district, where the older marine gravels have either not — 
been covered at all by the later volcanic deposits, or these 
have been removed by denudation. Probably in Roman — 
times also population was much less dense and there — 
50 


GENERAL INTRODUCTION 


were more forests. Here conditions have changed less : 
and there will always be districts, even in the volcanic 
area, where the rock comes so close to the surface that 
the ground is not worth cultivating, and where a universal 
measure of compulsion would be a mistake, and has indeed 
been proved to be so in more than one case—as has the 
- institution of fixed colonies of settlers. 

The permanent population of the Campagna is increasing 
rapidly. Under the conditions of thirty or forty years 
ago the greater part of it was (and much still is) under 
pasture, especially for sheep, which are little used for 
eating (except the lambs), but are kept for their wool 
and for their milk, out of which cheese (pecorino) and 
ricotta (a kind of curds) are made. They are driven down 
from the mountains in the autumn and back again in 
the summer, a custom which in some parts of Italy (e.g. 
in Apulia) goes back to Roman days—though probably 
not in the Campagna, where land was then too valuable. 
A large flock of sheep, with the large white dogs that 
guard them, is one of the most picturesque sights that 
can be imagined, led by the shepherds from the Abruzzi in 
their goatskin leggings, with all their household gods on 
mule-back or in carts: and not less picturesque are the 
thatched conical huts in which they live. Other portions, 
especially in or near the hills and towards the coast, are 
given up to woodland—small timber, used either for stakes 
for fencing, ete., or for charcoal-burning. Here, too, the 
work is done by immigrants from other parts of Italy 
—often from the mountains of Tuscany. 

Even in 1914 more than half the territory of the Agro 
Romano belonged to only forty-four proprietors, many 
of whom worked, and still work, through mercanti di 
campagna, whose interests were purely commercial and in 
no sense philanthropic. But the spread of civilising agencies 
such as schools, the prosperity which the war brought to the 
agricultural classes, who were able to sell their produce 
at a good price, and the higher standard of living to 
which they have since become accustomed—it is remarkable 


how much more meat is eaten than before, especially by 
51 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


those who as soldiers became used to a meat ration— 
have brought great changes. The spread of motor transit 
and of motor traction has had a very great influence, 
too—what were remote districts are now easily accessible, 
even to the poor, by means of motor-omnibuses: and 
motor-ploughs have done their share in bringing fresh 
land under cultivation and in reducing the archaeologist to 
despair—for they have the strength to pulverise such 
ancient remains as may lie in their way, so that all that 
is left is a sprinkling of fragments of brick and mortar 
on the surface of the ground. 

The hill districts are very fertile—the bare limestone 
slopes of the Sabine mountains give way below Tivoli 
to gentle declivities where olive-trees centuries old flourish, 
and where grapes (especially the pointed pizzutelli, which 
are used for eating) grow well. The Alban Hills produce 
a great deal of wine, both red and white—very palatable, 
but not made carefully enough to travel nor to keep 
long, so that in an abundant year there is often over- 
production—as well as grain, vegetables, and fruit; while 
the upper slopes are clad with woods, which are cut every 
eighteen or twenty years, like those in the Campagna, but, 
being largely chestnut, run toa greater height than the dwarf 
oaks, etc., of the lower ground. 

Professor Tomassetti, in his book already quoted, appeals 
more than once, with justice and good reason, to the 
proprietors and inhabitants of the Roman Campagna, to 
_ Show more respect for the ruins and memorials of antiquity, 
which are still so plentiful. He cites a case—and I could 
cite many more—of inexcusable and unnecessary vandal- 
ism, all the more deplorable inasmuch as every element 
which can help us in the reconstruction of the classical 
and mediaeval conditions of the Campagna is of the 
greatest value. That much must perish is inevitable: 
cultivation spreads rapidly, and discovery and destruction 
are almost simultaneous—I have, indeed, recorded my 
belief that the next fifty years may see a complete change 
in the economic conditions of the Campagna—but much 
can and should be preserved. In the meantime it is well 
52 


GENERAL INTRODUCTION 


that attention should be directed to the accurate observa- 
tion of what will soon disappear; and what Professor 
Tomassetti has done for the Middle Ages (though his work 
is by no means restricted to that) others are doing for 
the classical period. Those who have studied the Cam- 
pagna can testify to the intense pleasure and delight that 
it gives to wander there—and can also bear witness from 
their own experience that, while criticism of others may 
be easy, to arrive at completeness, so as to satisfy oneself 
that one’s work is exhaustive, is quite impossible. 


53 


I 


THE ROADS LEADING TO 
THE SABINE COUNTRY 
AND THE APENNINES 


I. THE VIA SALARIA 
II. THE VIA NOMENTANA 
lI. THE VIA TIBURTINA 


: 


I 


| PRELIMINARY NOTE 


HE ROADS OF THE FIRST GROUP, until they reach 

: the Apennines, lead at first through a fairly easy 
and undulating country—at present rather sparsely 
inhabited and cultivated. Both the Via Salaria and the 


Via Tiburtina (the latter after Tibur acquiring the name 


of Via Valeria) pierce the barrier of limestone mountains 
which lies on the east of the lower volcanic district of the 
Campagna, the former following a wide and not very 
lofty depression among the surrounding hills, which 
eventually takes it over to the plain of Reate, on the 
borders of Sabina and Umbria; while the latter, after 
passing Tibur, the key to the upper Anio valley, follows 
this for some way, and then ascends rather steeply out 
of it to a high-lying upland plain, and then climbs still 
further, crossing more than one high pass in its journey 
across the peninsula. 

The Via Nomentana, on the other hand, never became 
more than a road of local importance; but the district 
between it and the Via Tiburtina, like the immediate 
environs of Tibur, was a favourite resort of the Romans ; 
and this was especially so where it came close under 
the shelter of the lofty mountain barrier and into 
the region of the little group of conical hills known in 
ancient times as the Montes Corniculani. Here, in the 
ealcareous soil, fruit-trees flourish better than the vine ; 
and the almond and cherry blossom in the spring is a 
delight to behold. This district was served both by it 
and by a branch road of the Via Tiburtina. The district 
close to the Tiber, on the other hand, is of considerably 
less interest, and was less favoured in antiquity. The 

57 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES — 


southern boundary of the district is the Anio, and the 
region between the two rivers is referred to as [Isola 
(the Island) in the maps of the sixteenth century. We 
must, however, overstep this boundary in the last part 
of our survey, when we reach the neighbourhood of Tibur, 
in order to include not only the town itself but the villa 
of Hadrian in the lower country, and that line of other 
villas higher up on the olive-clad slopes facing towards 
Rome in an open situation, looking out to the sunset and 
the sea, with an uninterrupted view of the Campagna— 
the Tibur Superbum of which Vergil speaks. 


58 


I 


THE VIA SALARIA 


one of the oldest of Roman roads. Not only were 

Antemnae and Fidenae among the earliest con- 
quests of Rome in Latium: but its name is said by our 
classical authorities to be derived from the fact that it 
was the route used by the Sabines who came to fetch 
salt from the marshes at the mouth of the Tiber, and we 
may notice that it never changed throughout history. 
| It also followed a natural route along the river valley for 
‘a considerable way until, at the site of the ancient Eretum, 
it entered the hills. 
| he Via Salaria left Rome by the Porta Collina of the 
| Servian wall, remains of which were found in 1872 on the 
site of the N.W. angle of the Finance Ministry. Im- 
mediately outside this the Via Nomentana diverged to 
the right, while the Via Salaria, after less than a quarter 
of a mile, reached its gate in the Aurelian wall, the Porta 
Salaria. This gate, which belonged to the time of 
_ Aurelian, had been restored by Honorius, and had two 
semi-circular towers. It was seriously damaged in the 
_ bombardment of September 20, 1870. Its remains were 
accordingly removed, and under the towers were found 
some interesting tombs. That on the right had concealed 
| the monument of the boy Q. Sulpicius Maximus. The 
gate was then entirely reconstructed, and this purely 
modern building, which preserved nothing even of the 
ancient lines, has recently been removed. Its only title 
- to interest was that one of its side-passages gave shelter 
to one of the last, if not the very last, of the public letter- 
writers of the modern city. 


63374 


sk VIA SALARIA is, as we have seen, necessarily 


59 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES © 


As to the initial portion of the road a difficult point is 
raised by the catalogues of Christian cemeteries, which j 
take us back to the fourth century. In these we find the _ 


Via Salaria Vetus distinguished from the Via Salaria 
(Nova).1 The Nova is undoubtedly the straight road 
from the Porta Collina to the Porta Salaria of the Aurelian 
wall, and so on along the line followed by the modern 
road; but as to the Vetus there is more question. De 
Rossi (Bull. Crist. 1894, 6 sqqg.) makes it diverge from 
the Nova at the Porta Collina, identifying it with a road 
which passes under the Aurelian wall (which blocked its 
course completely) between the second and third towers 
to the W. of the Porta Salaria, and thence ran up to the 
Bivio del Leoncino, at the E. angle of the Villa Borghese. 
He then makes it follow the Via dei Parioli, the line of 
which is represented by the new Via Giovanni Paisello, 
sending off a branch from near the Bivio to join the 
Salaria Nova. Subsequent discoveries have proved him 
right, and the course of the road has been exactly deter- 
mined.* The three cemeteries which the catalogues men- 
tion as existing along its course are, that of Pamphilus, 
that of S. Hermes, or of Basilla, and a: third called “ad 
Septem Palumbas,” “ad caput S. Iohannis,” or “ad 
Clivum Cucumeris,” the first and second of which have 
been discovered, the former near the point of divergence 
of the Via Nicola Porpora, the latter in a vineyard now 
belonging to the German College, rather further along, 
on the S.W. side of the road. The third has not yet 
been found, but must be upon the descent (in which traces 
of the ancient paving have been seen 3) to the N.W. of 
the cemetery of S. Hermes. 


1 This addition is now generally made for convenience, though 
it does not occur in the catalogues. 

* Josi in Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana, i. (1924) 19 sqq. 

8 The old Vicolo delle Tre Madonne, the Vicolo dell’ Arco Oscuro 
(both of which diverge S.S.W. from this road), and the cross road 
connecting them N.E. of the Villa di Papa Giulio are all, probably, 
of ancient origin, as are, indeed, all the lanes in this district (Bull. 


Com. 1891, 144), which has in recent years been much altered by 
building operations. 


THE VIA SALARIA 


If, however, we follow this descent we arrive at the 
foot of the Monti Parioli, not far from the Ponte Molle; 
and if we accept the name of Via Salaria Vetus for this 
road we must, if we wish to press the meaning of the 
name for the whole road, either suppose that it pursued 
a winding course (of which no traces are known) along 
the flat known ground to the W. and N. of Antemnae 
to reach the crossing of the Anio, or else abandon any 
attempt to connect it with the line of the road as we 
know it. And I think the name may be otherwise 
explained. 

In the fourth century the closing of this road, along 
which a very large number of tombs existed, by the con- 
struction of the wall of Aurelian, would still be remembered ; 
and this might have given rise to its being called vetus 
without our being obliged to suppose that it represents 
the original course of the road. 

Immediately outside the gate, to the W. of the road, 
began one of the most extensive cemeteries of ancient 
Rome, in which thousands of tombs have been found in 
the last two centuries. The majority of them belong to 
the lower orders, and many of them are small chambers 
containing a number of urns for the ashes of the dead, 
and known as columbaria from the resemblance of the 
niches (to which the name strictly belongs, though it is in 
practice now used for the whole structure, which in ancient 
times was called monuwmentum) to those of a dovecot. 
This method of disposal of the remains of the dead came 
into vogue at the end of the Republican period, and went 
out of use about the beginning of the third century after 
Christ. Several columbaria belonging to the end of the 
Republican and the beginning of the Imperial period were 
found, in a very fine state of preservation, during the 
closing years of last century on the site of the Carmelite 
monastery of S. Teresa, on the Corso d’ Italia. They 
were arranged, as if they had been the houses of the 
living, in four rows, separated by three narrow roads, 
running parallel to an ancient road which is by some 
identified with the Via Salaria Vetus. Subsequent build- 

61 


/ 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES : 


ing operations have shown that this huge necropolis — 


extended as far as Via Po. It has unfortunately been — 

impossible to preserve any of these tombs in situ. 
Important mausolea are rare, though a striking excep- 

tion is formed by the fine round mausoleum of Lucilius 


: 


Paetus in the Vigna Bertone (C.J.L. vi. 82982). It — 


consists of a circular base, 84 metres in diameter, of 


ove 


blocks of travertine, which encloses a mass of earth upon 
which a conical mound was probably placed. The sepul- — 
chral chamber was perhaps transformed into a Christian © 


burying-place late in the fourth century (Marucchi, Cata- 


combs, 888 n. 1). Here and elsewhere the tombs of the — 


second and third centuries A.D. lie at a much higher level, 


and Professor Lanciani conjectures (Pagan and Christian © 


Rome, 284) that the earth which Trajan excavated for 
the construction of his Forum was dumped here. 

A cippus of the pomerium as enlarged by Claudius 
was found (whether im situ or not we do not know) in 


the Vigna Naro in 1738, at about 300 metres from the — 


Porta Salaria (C.J.L. vi. 81537c); and a cippus of 
the octroi line of Marcus Aurelius was copied “‘in Via 


Salaria ’? by the Anonymus Einsiedlensis. If Lanciani’s | 


conjecture, that the wall of Aurelian followed the octroi — 


line, is correct, it must originally have stood close to 
the gate (Bull. Com. 1892, 94). On the E. of the road 


there seem to have been hardly any tombs. A road goes — 


off to join the Via Nomentana (the Vicolo della Fontana), 


forming the boundary of the Villa Albani, which very — 
likely follows an ancient line (Lanciani, Forma Urbis, 3, — 
after Bufalini). Its course is uncertain for a while; it. 


may have fallen into the Via Nomentana at the first 
kilometre, but it seems more probable that it went straight 
on, its line being taken up again by the Vicolo degli 
Alberoni, in the boundary walls of which there were 
several paving-stones, and which seems to have followed 
an old line; and that it then went on through the valley 
and joined the cross-road known as the Vicolo di S. Agnese. 
Remains of Roman villas are scanty in this district, and 
Lanciani (Bull. Com. 1891, 147) cautions his readers that 
62 


st 
4 


* 


THE VIA SALARIA 


many of the architectural fragments to be seen in the 
vineyards are not of local provenance. 

The cutting of the Via Po and the widening of the 
Via Salaria itself in connexion with the construction of a 
large new quarter have transformed the district almost 
beyond recognition: but after crossing the Viale dei 
Parioli, a little beyond which would fall the site of the 
first ancient milestone, the road preserves for about 
another mile the features which were characteristic of 
all the roads running out of Rome up till our own day. 
It is still a narrow cobble-paved road confined between 
high walls, over which are seen the trees of the villas 
which flank it, while gateways afford occasional glimpses 
of their gardens. On the left, after the Villa Grazioli, 
comes the Villa Savoia, the new Royal villa, the grounds 
of which extend as far as the confines of the fort of 
Antemnae. On the right was the old Villa Falconieri, 
part of the garden of which is still preserved. 

A little further on the Vicolo di S. Agnese, a lane which 
almost certainly represents an ancient road, goes off at 
_ tight angles in a straight line to the Via Nomentana, 

reaching it close to the church of S. Agnese. Just beyond 
it the road turns N. and begins to descend through a cut- 
ting, which has been considerably enlarged in modern 
times, to the valley of the Anio. On the left is the 
entrance to the catacombs of Priscilla. To the right is 
the Villa Chigi, which still preserves its fine garden. 

A little further on, and still on the left of the road, is 
the hill, now crowned by a fort, once occupied by the 
primitive village of Antemnae, said to have been conquered 
by Romulus. The meaning of the name is explained 
as ““ante amnem, i.e. Anienem,’’ by Varro, L.L. v. 28, 
inasmuch as it stands at the point where the Anio falls 
into the Tiber, thus occupying a position of great strength. 
Plutarch (Sulla, 30) mentions it in connexion with the 
battle of the Porta Collina in 82 B.c. in such a manner as 
to indicate that it was not far from the city. Strabo 
mentions it, with Collatia, Fidenae, and Labici, as amongst 
the old fortified towns near Rome which had in his time 

—- 63 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES — 


become mere villages, some 80 stadia (4 miles) or a little 
more from Rome (v. 3. 2, p. 230), and Pliny (N.H. iii. 68) 
names it among the cities of Latium which had disappeared 
in his day. The indications given by our ancient authori- 
ties are sufficiently clear to make the identification certain, 
and there has never been any real doubt as to the site: 
while absolute certainty was brought by the excavations 
in connexion with the construction of the fort in 1882-86 


(Lanciani, Ruins and Excavations, 111), when the remains — 


of the primitive city were discovered. Some traces of — 


walling were found both on the N. and S., at two points 
where the existence of gates is probable (Nibby, Analisi, 
i. 161, supposes that there were four gates in all, but 


Lanciani admits three only), built in somewhat irregular — 


opus quadratum of blocks of capellaccio (an inferior 
variety of tufa), not very carefully squared, 0°89 m. in 
length on an average, and 0-59 in height (Ruins and 
Excavations, cit.). Remains of the foundations of huts 
were also discovered, and a good deal of local pottery, 


corresponding to that found in the earlier strata of the — 


Ksquiline necropolis, with a considerable admixture of j 


Etruscan bucchero and Graeco-Chalcidian ware; and 
there were (so it is said) even a few sporadic objects of 
the Stone Age. 

The water supply of the city was well cared for: 
besides the springs at the foot of the hill on the N., there 
were several wells and a cistern within the circuit of the 
walls. One of the former is no less than 54 feet deep, 
while the cistern (Ruins and Excavations, Fig. 48), destroyed 
soon after its discovery, was of great interest. 

The N. portion of the site was later on occupied by a 
villa at the end of the Republican or commencement of 
the Imperial period, considerable remains of which were 
found, among them a cistern divided into three chambers. 
Two brick stamps of the first century a.p. (C.I.L. xv. 
670b, 864) were found loose near these ruins. On the 
K. side some burials under tiles were discovered, dating 
perhaps from the time of the abandonment of the villa: 
the coins found with the bodies were illegible. Two 
64 


THE VIA SALARIA 


inscribed cippi were also found in use in the repairs of the 
villa itself. ) 

The comparison which Professor Lanciani makes and 
develops between Antemnae and the early city on the 
Palatine is interesting and important, and it is a pity 
that military exigencies rendered it impossible to explore 
the site thoroughly, and to preserve the remains which 
were discovered. I do not know even where the pottery 
that was found is kept. 

The hills on both sides of the road just above the Anio 
valley, the hills on the right after the crossing over the 
Anio, and the flat ground in the valleys both of the Anio 
and the Tiber, must have afforded the brick-earth which 
was used in the kilns of the Via Salaria. These were of 
considerable importance in Roman times, but have since 
then fallen out of use, and have no modern representatives, 
whereas the less important brick-fields of the Via Nomen- 
tana are still represented by a kiln near the bridge of 
that road over the Anio. 

The Ponte Salario by which the road crosses the Anio 
has been thrice destroyed in comparatively recent times, 
and little of the ancient structure now remains except 
the greater portion of the small arches on each side. It 
was cut in 1849 for a length of 15 metres by the French 
in their attack on Rome (Rapport de la Commission Miate 
pour constater les dégdts, etc. (Paris, 1850), 42). A photo- 
graph of it after it was blown up in 1867 is given in Lanci- 
ani’s Destruction of Ancient Rome, p. 149, fig. 26. Canina 
(Edifizi, vi. tay. 178) gives views of it. It had one central 
arch and two smaller side-arches of tufa with voussoirs 
of travertine. The parapets, which were thrown into the 
river in 1798, bore the inscription of Narses, who restored 
the bridge under Justinian in a.p. 565 1 (C.I.L. vi. 1199). 

1 Nibby, op. cit., ii. 594, cites Procopius, Bell. Goth. iii. 24, fin., 
as stating that Narses destroyed all the bridges over the Anio ; 
but the passage runs: ‘“‘ Totila and the barbarians, having raised 
the siege, came to Tibur, after having destroyed almost all the 
bridges over the Tiber, so that the Romans could not easily attack 


them. But one bridge, which is named the Milvian, they were in no 
way able to destroy, because it was the nearest to the city.” It 


E - 65 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


On the left of the road a little beyond the bridge is 
a large tomb of tufa concrete (the facing of rectangular 
blocks of stone has disappeared) with a chamber in the 
form. of a Greek cross and a mediaeval tower above. The 
staff map marks ruins on the right also, but the loose 
blocks in the field at this point belong to the old bridge. 

From the Ponte Salario the modern highroad follows 
the Tiber as far as the railway station of Passo Correse, 
keeping clear of the hills which flank it on the E., and 
hardly ever changing in level. No traces of pavement 
have, so far as I know, been discovered except in 1889, 
when a few paving-stones were found in a hole made 
below Villa Spada for a telegraph-pole along the railway 
(Not. Scav. 1889, 110). The ancient road, therefore, kept 
more under the hills than the modern, as the remains of 
tombs indicate, but the level was much the same. West- 
phal (Rémische Kampagne, 127, 128) remarks that there 
are no traces of the old road along the modern one except 
in places, up to the sixteenth mile, large paving-stones 
of limestone ; and remains of ancient buildings are com- 
paratively scanty. This fact has considerably complicated 
the difficult problem as to the exact point at which the 
ancient Via Salaria left the river valley. 

On the right of the road, close to the Torre Boschetto, 
are some remains in opus reticulatum, belonging probably 
to a villa. The Torre Serpentara does not seem to rest 
upon ancient foundations; no traces, at least, are at 
present to be seen, the brickwork of the lower part of 
the tower being mediaeval ; and there are no other remains 
to be seen until we arrive at Fidenae. 
certainly looks, however, as if Procopius had here, as in iii. 10 
(where he says that Tibur lay on the Tiber about 120 stadia (15 
miles)—a rough measurement—from Rome, so that Totila’s occupa- 
tion of it prevented the Romans from bringing provisions down 
by river from Tuscany !), confused the Anio with the Tiber. The 
Pons Milvius is, of course, the bridge by which the Via Flaminia 
crosses the Tiber, and there was no bridge across the Tiber above 
it until the Via Flaminia recrossed it near Otricoli, nor any bridge 
below it, except those actually within the city of Rome. Besides, 
it would have been the bridges over the Anio which it was important 


to destroy. 
66 


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To face p, 67. 


THE VIA SALARIA 


Fidenae had very considerable importance in the early 
wars with Veii as commanding both the route up and 
down the Tiber valley and the bridgehead. Its site has 
been a good deal discussed ;_ but, despite what I said in 
the Papers,’ I am now convinced that it would have been 
impossible to leave so strong a site as Castel Giubileo 
unoccupied. It commands both the crossing of the Tiber 
and the passage along the valley; and the fact that the 
road passed between the citadel and the village—if an 
historic Fidenae was really so large as to extend over 
the hills to the E. as well—is not an insurmountable 
obstacle, and might indeed render it still easier to block 
the passage. The hill is crowned by a mediaeval farm. 
house which takes its name not from any papal jubilee 
but from the family of the Giubilei (Fig. 1). 

The existence of tombs (if such they be) cut in the low 
tufa cliffs N. of the Villa Spada, on the hill above the E. 
edge of the railway, even if they are to be assigned to 
pre-Roman times, does not suffice to determine exactly the 
site of the earliest settlement. We know, on the other 
hand, that the Roman village of Imperial days, which 
grew out of the post-station, lay at the foot of the Villa 
Spada hill. 

The accounts of its desolation are probably to some 
extent exaggerated: Cicero (De Leg. Agr. ii. 35. 96) speaks 
of it as almost deserted, classing it with Labici and Col- 
latia; Strabo mentions it with Collatia and Antemnae 
as an old town, the site of which had then passed into 
private hands; Horace (Epist. i. 11. 8) and Juvenal 
(vi. 57, x. 100) scorn it as the type of desolation, 
ranking it with Gabii, which, however, enjoyed a certain 
amount of prosperity under the Empire (cf. Papers, i. 188). 
We hear, too, of the collapse of a temporary amphitheatre 
at Fidenae in a.p. 27, in which many thousand persons 
perished—Suetonius (Z'%b. 40) puts the number of killed 
at 20,000, Tacitus (Ann. iv. 63) the_total number of 
casualties at 50,000. Most of the spectators must, it is 
true, have come from Rome: and the structure wa 
: 1 Op. cit., 17 sqq. 

67 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


probably erected on the flat ground by the river for 
convenience. | 

We first reach the Roman post-station, which must 
have possessed a certain importance. Close to the road 
in 1889 was found the actual curia* of the village—a_ 
hall facing W., the back wall of which was formed by the 
rock itself, cut perpendicularly and cemented ; while the 
W. wall had an arch formed by two pilasters and two 
columns. It was decorated with marble, and on the 
pavement lay a marble base, which no doubt supported 
a statue, with a dedication to M. Aurelius by the Senatus 
Fidenatium, made during the lifetime of Antoninus Pius 
(a.p. 140), and some fragments of other inscriptions and 
parts of two statues. The “ Casale di Villa Spada,” the 
farmhouse immediately to the S. of the hill, was also built 
upon a portion of a brick edifice of the Roman period. 
It has now, however, been completely destroyed. 

Two other inscriptions of which we have record were 
probably found in the curia. 

The first (C.I.L. xiv. 4057) is a dedication of unknown 
date (some time early in the second century) to the Numen 
Domus Augustae of a building or statue which was restored 
by the Senate after a fire (the place and date of its dis- 
covery are unknown); and the other (ib., 4058) is a dedi- 
cation to Gallienus (in which the two chief magistrates 
of the place still bear the title of dictator) by the Senate 
itself, found in 1767 “‘ near the Villa Spada.” 

The village cannot have extended far to the N. of the 
curia, for there would have been no space for it at 
the foot of the hills; and, besides, about 100 yards to the 
N. of it (or rather more), just below the Villa Spada itself, 
a tomb was discovered in 1889, when the railway line 
was doubled, consisting of two chambers cut in the rock, 
the outer of which had a mosaic floor, while upon the 
architrave over the doorway leading to the inner chamber, 
which can still be seen on the edge of the line, was the 
inscription “ Ti(berio) Apronio Apollon flilio) Fab(ia) 
1 Its site is indicated on the map a little to the S.W. of the 


F. of Fidenae (but cf. Ephemeris Dacoromana, ii. 434). 
68 


THE VIA SALARIA 


Apollonio hic sepultus est.” From this inscription we 
learn for the first time the tribe to which Fidenae belonged. 

The summit of the hill has been occupied by a villa of 
the Imperial period, of which an open water reservoir is 
the most conspicuous portion remaining. 

The next hill to the N. is the site selected by some 
authors for the city of Fidenae. Nibby (Analisi, ii. 61) 
notices the abundance of fragments of pottery (which I 
was unable to find), some remains in opus reticulatum 
near the S.W. angle of the plateau, and a subterranean 
passage cut in the rock (indicated also by Dennis, Citves 
and Cemeteries of Etruria, i. 48, and D on plan), which 
has been explored by Tomassetti (op. cit., 78), who found 
it to lead to a reservoir with several branches and vertical 
shafts communicating with the upper air, of a type 
common in the Roman Campagna. The entrance is 
round-headed, about 5 feet high and a foot and a half in 
width, and looks like the exit of a drain. 

Close by Dennis indicates a large cave (E), now closed 
by a gate, but which, according to him, has several rami- 
fications (to the N.E. of which is a shaft such as Tomas- 
setti describes, one side of which has been quarried 
away), and a tomb (G), and on the W. side of the hill 
above the railway are several more tombs. 

Just beyond the site of the sixth milestone a modern 
road goes off to a new iron bridge over the Tiber. In 
making the road remains of a building of the second 
century after Christ were discovered, including two well- 
preserved bathrooms heated by hypocausts. 

About half a mile beyond Castel Giubileo is the Fosso 
della Buffalotta, and on the N. of it the Casale di Sette 


1 It may be noticed in passing that the tombs he indicates above 
the Casale di Villa Spada are no longer visible—perhaps owing to 
the fall of the rock. Some damage has very likely occurred to the 
tombs—though not at all recently as far as one can tell—from 
quarrying. Lanciani (Storia degli Scavi, i. 205) mentions the letting 
of a quarry near Castel Giubileo in 1521. But the quarries date 
from ancient times, and are mentioned by Vitruvius (ii. 71) and 
Pliny (N.H. xxxvi. 167) as producing soft stone. The same stone 
is found near Prima Porta. It is full of cinders, and is not of a very 
good quality (Tenney Frank, Roman Buildings of the Republic, 17). 

' 69 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


Bagni, between which and the railway are various remains. 
On the E. edge of the railway, behind a signalman’s house, 
are the concrete foundation walls (preserved to a con- 
siderable height) of a large villa, and further up remains 
in opus reticulatum. Further towards the E. are two 
water reservoirs, situated close to the casale. To the 
EK. of the casale are large caves ; and here Dennis (op. cit., 
50) places the chief necropolis of Fidenae. Further to 
the N.E. on the top of the hill is a large reservoir, with 
at least three chambers, each measuring 10°9 by 2°5 
metres inside, and connected by openings placed slightly 
on the skew to one another, so as to reduce the pressure, 
as in the so-called Sette Sale at Rome (really a reservoir 
belonging to the Golden House of Nero). The hill is 
bounded on the N. by the Fosso di Malpasso, which is 
joined by the Fosso della Buffalotta just to the E. of 
the road which crosses them both by the Ponte di Malpasso. 
The bridge consisted until 1832 of remains of three periods 
—opus quadratum of tufa of the original structure, a 
brick arch with a double ring of brickwork, the stamps in 
which dated from a.p. 126-129, and an arch of com- 
paratively modern date. A view is given (Nibby, Analisi, 
i. 129) by Guattani, Mon. Sabini, i. tav. 2 (opp. p. 438). 

The identification of the stream with the Allia (Nibby 
seems to refer rather to the Fosso della Buffalotta, the 
more important of the two) seems doubtful, inasmuch as 
the distance from Rome is insufficient. A mile from 
this point, according to Gell and Nibby, the ancient Via 
Salaria left the valley of the Tiber and ran towards Nomen- 
tum. ‘The theory is, however, a very improbable one, and 
is conditioned by the desire to place Eretum at Grotta 
Marozza. The road which they indicate as the Via Salaria 
is in all probability a mere deverticulum (Hulsen and 
Lindner, Alliaschlacht, 20 n. 8). 

We may notice that the Tabula Peutingerana makes 
a branch go to the right from Fidenae to Nomentum 
and join the Via Nomentana there. This may be what 
Nibby considers the original Via Salaria (Desjardins, Tab. 
Peut., 176). 

70 


THE VIA SALARIA 


A mile or more further on the Casale Marcigliana rises 
on a hill above the road. No traces of antiquity are 
visible there at present, except for a plain marble sarco- 
phagus in the courtyard; but Nibby (op. cit., li. 303) 
saw a sepulchral cippus with the inscription C.J.L. xiv. 
4065 (now in the Lateran), and several architectural 
fragments. 

Beyond Casale Marcigliana no traces of antiquity are 
visible for some distance, except for a well-preserved 
reservoir at the Torretta or Marcigliana Vecchia, the path 
leading to which from the E.S.E. very likely follows the 
line of an ancient road. 

The Allia, from which the terrible defeat which the 
Romans suffered at the hands of the Gauls in 390 B.c. 
took its name, has been rightly identified by Hulsen and 
Lindner, following Westphal (Rémische Kampagne, 127), 
Gell (Topography of Rome and its Vicinity, 43) and Kiepert, 
with the Fosso Bettina; both Livy (v. 37) and Plutarch 
(Com. 18) place it at about 11 miles from Rome, and 
the former speaks of the stream as “‘ Crustuminis montibus 
praealto defluens alveo.”’ But the two full accounts of 
the battle which we have—that of Livy and that of 
Diodorus (v. 114)—differ with regard to the site of 
the battle, the former putting it on the left, the 
latter on the right bank of the Tiber. The question 
of the relative value of the two accounts has been much 
debated. Hiilsen and Lindner (op. cit.), after a careful 
study of the ground, decided in favour of Diodorus, 
as Mommsen had already done (Hermes, xii. 515 = Rom. 
Forsch., ii. 297), but their view has not been accepted 
by Pais (Storia di Roma, i. 281, n. 1) nor by Richter 
(Beitrage zur rém. Topogr. i. Alliaschlacht und Servius- 
mauer), nor by Kromayer, the latest and the best authority 
on the subject. Richter insists strongly on the fact of 
the impregnability of Rome from an attack delivered by 
an enemy on the right bank opposite the city, owing to 
the difficulty of crossing the river. It is this fact which, 
according to him, explains the importance of Fidenae 
in the early wars between Rome and Veli; even admitting, 

71 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


as he does, that the repeated defections and recapture of 
Fidenae are by no means all to be accepted as historical 
events, he regards it as the key to the position in all this 
warfare, inasmuch as it was near it that the Veientines, 
descending the valley of the Cremera, would naturally 
cross the river. He explains the flight of that portion 
of the Roman army which escaped to Veii (and not to 
Rome) by the fact that the Gauls had already cut off 
the passage to the city—which, even if the river did not 
run closer to the foot of the hills than it does now, is 
quite conceivable: while the absence of any effort on 
their part to relieve Rome may have been due to the 
difficulty already pointed out of crossing the river near 
the city and to the smallness of their numbers. Kromayer 
points out, too, that the ground on the left bank suits 
Livy’s description of the battle perfectly. It is not a 
little curious that the Romans should have made the 
same mistake then as Maxentius did, centuries later, 
when he was defeated by Constantine, in occupying a 
hill with a steep descent behind them, so that when they 
had once given way recovery was impossible. 

A little to the S. of the railway station a path ascends 
to Monte Rotondo, which very likely follows an ancient 
line. At Monte Rotondo it may have forked, one branch 
going to Mentana, another to join the prolongation of 
the Via Nomentana, though there are no certain traces 
of antiquity on either. The town occupies a fine position 
on a hill, but there is no reason for supposing that the 
site is that of an ancient city—Eretum certainly was not 
situated here, as Raphael Volaterranus (i. 54) and other 
authors (Cluver, Italia antiqua, p. 667, and, apparently, if 
silence gives consent, Holste) have supposed; for, as 
Dessau (C.I.L. xiv. 489) points out, it is by no means at 
the right distance from Rome. Nor can Gell’s identifi- 
cation of the site with that of Crustumerium (op. cit., 190) 
be defended. Several sepulchral inscriptions have, not 
unnaturally, been collected in and near the town (C.J.L. 
xlv. 8982-3939), though only Nos. 8988-3939 seem to 
be still preserved, but none of them presents features 
72 


ae ae 


THE VIA SALARIA 


of any interest and their provenance is in no case 
certain. 

The road running due N. from Monte Rotondo probably 

—in fact almost certainly—follows an ancient line, 
though no actual traces of paving are to be seen. A 
large bridge with twelve arches, belonging to an aqueduct, 
on the W. of it, half-way to La Mola, does not seem to 
be ancient: there are, on the other hand, remains of a 
villa on the E. of it, just before it descends into the valley. 
At La Mola traces of antiquity are absent. It seems prob- 
able, however, that it was here that the road we have 
been following fell into the Via Salaria, which left the 
valley of the Tiber at the Osteria del Grillo, about 16 
miles from the Porta Collina. The sixteenth milestone 
of the road was found on the river bank in 1909. 
- The question is intimately connected with that as to 
the site of Eretum, which must be sought 14 miles from 
Fidenae (Tab. Peut.), i.e. 19 miles from Rome, or 18 miles 
from Rome (Itin. Ant.). 

Strabo (v. 8, i. p. 228) irestect it as a Sabine village 
situated above the Tiber at the point where the Via 
Nomentana joins the Via Salaria, and not far from the 
Aquae Labanae (cf. ib., ii. p. 288). Vergil speaks of it 
in the Aeneid (vii. 711) with ‘ olive-bearing Mutuesca,” 
and Servius (ad loc.) tells us that its name comes “ azo 
THS “Hpas,”’ ‘id est, a Junone, quae illic colitur” (cf. 
Solin, ii. 10). Dionysius speaks of it in one passage 
(iii. 82) as lying 107 stadia (133 miles) and in another 
(xi. 8) 140 stadia (174 miles) from Rome, and in the 
latter as lying near the Tiber. 

There is much difference of opinion as to its site: but it 
should probably be placed a little way—a mile or so— 
to the E. of the modern road, on the low hills above 
it, the exact site depending upon the view they take 
as to its distance from Rome. The line of the road 
is at present anything but clear at this point, for 
no traces exist on the spot. The remains, too, which 
are to be seen are somewhat insignificant; nothing is 
preserved above-ground but mere heaps of debris. Chaupy, 

7% 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


on the other hand, who explored the ground in 1768, gives 
a far more definite account, which, if it be accepted in its 
entirety, leaves little doubt as to the site of Eretum. He 
places the point where the Via Salaria leaves the valley of 
the Tiber at about the eighteenth ancient mile from Rome 
(corresponding more or less with the seventeenth modern 
mile), just after the Ponte di Casa Cotta, where, he says, 
he saw traces of pavement, some of the stones being 
an situ, while others had been removed. From this point 
the ancient road diverged from the modern towards the 
right. A little further on (p. 91) he tells us that the name 
of the place was Rimane. 

The nature of the old ruins within the enceinte would 
be doubtful, as he does not further describe them, did 
not Gell (op. cit., 204) speak of them as being of opus 
reticulatum, of which I cannot say that I saw any traces. 
But that we have here the site of Eretum (occupied 
apparently by a mediaeval castle, which is shown in a 
plan of the road preserved in the State Archives in 
Rome) seems increasingly probable from the fact that 
Chaupy, in going towards it from Torre Fiora, not along 
the road but across the fields, saw, ‘‘ vis-a-vis I’H6tel- 
lerie de Moricone,” a considerable piece of ancient paving 
running towards the ruins he had discovered. He was, 
however, in some doubt (and this is particularly unfor- 
tunate) whether to attribute it to the prolongation of the 
Via Nomentana to Eretum or to another road. 

Gell (op. cit., 208) remarks that ‘it is exceedingly 
difficult to fix with precision upon the places mentioned 
by this writer, or to connect intelligibly his narrations.’’ 
His own theory, that Eretum was at Grotta Marozza, is, 
as we have already said, incorrect: but his whole con- 
ception of the facts is vitiated by his supposition that the 
Via Salaria Vetus ran past Mentana. He is wrong, too, 


in supposing that the road which at ‘‘ mile xxi falls into | 


the Via Nomentana from the seventeenth mile of the lower 
Via Salaria”’ (i.e. that which runs N. of the Colle del 
Forno) must be that of which Chaupy speaks. I have 
already had occasion to make use of Chaupy’s accounts 
74 


THE VIA SALARIA 


of what he saw, and they appear to me to be of consider- 
able value. The doubt as to the existence of a road run- 
ning from the prolongation of the Via Nomentana to 
Rimane is particularly unfortunate, as no traces of any 
such road are, as far as I know, to be found—and this 
is an important point in the determination of the site of 
Kretum. The discovery of pavement just N. of the 
Ponte di Casa Cotta is not positive evidence, it is true, 
that the Via Salaria left the river only there, for it is 
probable that the road along the Tiber valley follows an 
ancient line. 

From it seems to have diverged a deverticulum about 
half a mile N. of Casa Cotta, to judge by a cutting through 
the hill to the W. of point 51, though the prolongation 
of it is not clear either to the N. or the S., and it certainly 
cannot belong to the Via Salaria itself. The latter must 
have gone straight on, as indicated in the map, though 
no traces of it now exist so far as I know: a little before 
the twenty-second mile, according to my reckoning, it 
reaches the church which Chaupy (op. cit., 75) rightly 
believed to be that of S. Anthimus, whose name the hill 
on which it stands still bears. He saw there columns of 
granite, of one of which Stevenson? observed a frag- 
ment, and, on the ascent immediately preceding it, traces 
of the pavement of the ancient road. Stevenson (Bull. 
Crist. 1896, 160) mentions the church, of which nothing 
but the apse of mediaeval work now remains standing, 
and his discovery of the cemetery in which the martyr 
was buried a little way to the E. of Monte Maggiore. The 
distance from Rome of the site of his tomb is variously 
given as the twenty-second and the twenty-eighth mile. 

Monte Maggiore itself may occupy an ancient site, 
but there are no traces of antiquity. There are various 
ancient fragments in the garden, including two circular 
putealia with reliefs. None of these is necessarily of 
local provenance, but may have been brought here from 


1 For all this district much valuable information is contained in 

a volume of Stevenson’s MS. notes, now in the Vatican (Vat. Lat. 
10551, 55 sqq.). 

75 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


Rome by Prince Sciarra, to whom the villa until recently 
belonged. 

Just S. of Monte Maggiore runs the modern road to 
Monte Libretti. This appears to follow an ancient line; 
there is no pavement on the older track, which cuts off 
some of the windings of the present road, but there are 
one or two paving-stones in situ in the bank on the S. side 
of the cutting a little way to the W. of the Casa Falconieri, 
about 2 metres above the present level. 

There are no traces of the Via Salaria, so far as I know, 
on the descent from Monte Maggiore to the Fosso di 
Carolano, but immediately after this is crossed its line 
may be clearly seen ascending 35° N. of E. through a 
deep cutting. On its S.E. edge are traces of buildings 
running parallel to it, mainly in brick; they have only 
recently been laid bare by the removal of the brushwood, 
the ground having been newly brought under cultivation, 
and have been much destroyed, so that little but debris 
is visible above-ground. I saw a fragment of a pediment 
in white marble, from a tomb or small shrine, the top 
of a sepulchral cippus (none of the inscribed portion was 
preserved), a threshold block of sandstone 1-92 metre long 
by 0-68 wide, and a fragment of a brick pilaster covered 
with plaster painted red measuring 42 by 386 cm. This 
may serve to show that the large group of buildings must 
have been of some importance—possibly they are the 
ruins of a halting-place on the road half-way between 
Eretum and Vicus Novus. 

A little way beyond, on the S.E. side of the line of the 
road, a large block of pudding-stone is embedded in the 
ground—it is probably part of the foundations of a tomb : 
and a little further on again, just before the point where 
the old line would fall into the modern path, several 
paving-stones of limestone may be seen in the field walls. 
Near the point where a modern path diverges N.N.E. 
the large blocks of limestone of the crepido are to be seen 
running 35° EK. of N. Near this point Stevenson seems 
to have observed the remains of several buildings on each 
side of the road, especially of water reservoirs. The corn 
76 


eesti och ree 


THE VIA SALARIA 


was already fairly high in places at the time of my visit, 
but I saw the platform of a villa on the N.W. of the road. 

Near the conjectural site of the twenty-fifth milestone 
the road reaches a new house, and here in a field-wall are 
many more blocks from the crepido of the road: two 
seem to be in situ on the S.E. edge of the modern path, 
and give the width of the road as 4°50 metres (just over 
15 feet) and its direction as 30° E. of N. Here is a 
large reservoir with four chambers, one of which I measured 
as 3°90 metres in width, and S.E. of it are remains of 
substruction walls. The Via Salaria soon reaches the 
Osteria della Creta (the house at 218 metres), Just beyond 
which is the Fabbrica Palmieri. Here it is joined by 
the prolongation of the Via Nomentana, with which I 
shall deal when I come to speak of that road, and also by 
the modern road from Fara Sabina station, which prob- 
ably does not follow an ancient line. We must, however, 
mention a few remains near to its course, and it may be 
well to include a few remarks on the site of Cures. 

To the W. of the Osteria della Creta are the foundations 
of a villa, but no other ruins are visible until we reach 
the Grotta S. Andrea, which is the platform of a large 
villa with a cryptoporticus on its S. and W. sides; the 
platform is built in rough opus quadratum of conglomerate 
and concrete. 

The Grotta Volpe, some way to the S., is a water reser- 
voir: and another reservoir will be found further W., 
just to the N. of the modern road, some distance to the 
S. of which, on the slopes above the Fosso Carolano, there 
is some brick debris. 

Just before we reach the bridge over the Fosso Corese, 
a path diverges N.N.E. and then runs almost due N. 
This is the line given by Kiepert (Carta dell’ I talia Centrale) 
as that of the road leading to Cures. The modern road 
to Fara Sabina on the W. bank of the Fosso Corese may 
also follow an ancient line. 

The site of Cures and the excavations of 1874-75 are 
described by Lanciani in Commentationes Philologae in © 
honorem Th. Mommseni (1877), 411 sqq.; while their 

17 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


continuation in 1877 is mentioned in Not. Scav. 1877, 245. 
The site consists of a hill with two summits, round the 
base of which runs the Fosso Corese. Nibby’s idea (Analisi, 
i. 587) that it included the whole triangle between the 
Fosso Corese and the Fosso Carolano, as far E. as point 
181 on the map, is absurd. The W. summit was 
occupied by the necropolis, the E. by the citadel 
(here stands the church of S. Maria degli Arci), and the 
lower ground between the two by the city itself. Some 
traces of the walls of the citadel, and of the cutting which 
separated it from the rest of the town, were recognised ; 
while in the necropolis a few graves of the Imperial period, 
the bodies being buried under tiles, were discovered. 

The excavations brought to light a part of the principal 
temple, the forum, and some remains of private houses. 

Cures is, as is well known, connected with the earliest 
history of Rome, as the home of Titus Tatius, who, accord- 
ing to the legend, founded the Sabine settlement on the 
Quirinal, and of Numa. At the beginning of the Imperial 
period it is spoken of as an unimportant place, but the 
inscriptions seem to indicate that it rose to greater pros- 
perity in the second century a.p., as did so many of the 
country towns of Italy. 

The classical literature with regard to it is summarised 
by Mommsen in C.I.L. ix. 471, and by Hiilsen in Pauly- 
Wissowa, R.E. iv. 1814, while Tomassetti (op. cit., 119 sqq.) 
deals fully with the mediaeval history of the place. In 
the territory of Cures, near the twenty-fifth mile from 
Rome, was the cemetery of SS. Tiburtius, Hyacinthus, 
and Alexander (Bull. Crist. 1880, 107). 

Capmartin de Chaupy, after having identified the site 
by means of the inscription C.I.L. ix. 4962, was so 
pleased with the discovery that he established himself in 
the Casino d’ Arci, and proposed to collect there whatever 
he could find of the antiquities of the town (op. cit., ili. 79). 

About a mile and a half to the W. of Cures is the ruin 
known as the Grotte di Torri, which by some writers 
(e.g. Cluver, Italia antiqua, and Galletti, Gabio antica citta 
di Sabina scoperta ove é ora Torri overo le grotte di Torri) 
78 


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ates Seige 


THE VIA SALARIA 


was supposed to be an ancient city, while others have 
found in it the site of a temple (Chaupy, op. cit., iii. 82). 
The ruins consist, however, as a fact, of an enormous 
rectangular platform, measuring about 96 by 93 metres, 
having an outer wall faced with polygonal work, very 
neatly jointed, with the faces of the blocks smoothed. 
Just inside this polygonal wall a cryptoporticus, the walls 
of which are faced with opus incertum, can be traced on 
all sides except on the S.S.E.; and on the W.S.W. there 
are two passages, the outer 3°67 metres in width, the 
inner 4 metres, the first of which is lighted by slit windows 
0°67 by 0-13 metre on the outside, where they pierce the 
polygonal wall. In the centre of the platform is a large 
water reservoir, above which is a courtyard 13°60 by 
7°38 metres, surrounded by a gutter of slabs of travertine. 

The total thickness of the outer wall, from the face of 
the polygonal blocks to the face of the opus incertum 
of the cryptoporticus, is only 1:2 metre, the polygonal 
wall being only a single block thick, so that by no 
possibility could it have stood alone to a height of 4 or 
5 metres. The attempts that have been made to see in 
this building the ruins of a primitive city are therefore 
futile ; it is nothing more than a very large villa of Roman 
date. It has recently been described in a paper by 
Giovenale (well illustrated with photographs) in Disserta- 
ziont dell’ Accad. Pontif. d’ Archeologia, Series ii. vol. vii. 
351 sqq., Figs. 9-14. 

On one of the blocks of the W.S.W. side at the W.N.W. 
angle are three phalli together (see Fig. 2), and on the 
N.N.W. side (low down) a lion. It may be worth noting 
that Gell (op. cit., 193) has again misunderstood Chaupy, 
who places these perfectly correctly at Grotte di Torri, 
and not at S. Pietro, a church which apparently stood at 
or near the point (181 on the map) where the road turns 
off to the village of Corese. 

_ After this digression we may now return to the Via 
Salaria, which we left at the Osteria della Creta. Just N. 
of this building, on the W. edge of the road, are the founda- 
tions of an ancient building, and on the hill a mile to the 
79 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


N., to the E. of the Casa S. Croce, is the platform of a 
villa (Vespignani, Ann. Inst. 1834, 107). At the twenty- 
seventh (ancient) mile from Rome we reach the Ponte 
Mercato: the present bridge is new, but there are remains 
of an older one, not necessarily of Roman date, in concrete, 
8°35 metres in width. 

On the N. edge of the old road is a tomb—a round 
mass of concrete, within which is a square chamber with 
three rectangular niches, lined with brick and opus 
reticulatum. Beyond this a line of stones marks the 
course of the old road, which crosses the modern just 
before the site of the twenty-eighth milestone, and follows 
a valley in an N.E. direction. The older Roman road ran 
almost due N. from the Osteria Nerola, and now forms the 
boundary between the provinces of Rome and Perugia 
for a little way, and, further on, that between the com- 
munes of Fara Sabina and Ponticelli. Through the 
valley of which I have spoken the Via Salaria can be 
clearly traced. The roadway is about 6 metres wide, 
and the crepidines 0°60 metre each. On the S.E. side of 
it, on a projecting hill, is a large platform, upon which 
are some unfluted columns of pudding-stone 0°60 metre 
in diameter: the place bears the name of S. Margherita, 
but it is an ancient site, though a church may have been 
erected there in later times. Not far off is a round-headed 
channel cut in the rock, which may have served to supply 
water, as there are still springs in the neighbourhood, A 
little further on, below the road, are the remains of a 
building in brick and concrete. Three hundred yards 
beyond this is the so-called Ponte del Diavolo, an embank- 
ment wall in opus quadratum of local conglomerate, with 
the N.W. side alone free, by which the road is supported 
in its ascent on the S.E. slopes of the valley, which it 
now abandons for the time. It is about 20 metres in 
length, with a turn in the middle, according to the plan 
of Vespignani (Ann. Inst. cit., tav. C), 7°40 metres in 
height at the highest part and 10 metres in width.!, There 

1 Vespignani makes it only 4 metres, but I quote my own 


measurement. It will be seen, too, that the measurements of his 
80 


THE VIA SALARIA 


is a parapet on the N.W. side 60 cm. in width, while that 
on the S.K. side, which must have served as a footpath, 
is no less than 2°30 metres wide. There are eight but- 
tresses, and between the fifth and sixth from the S. end 
there is an aperture for drainage 1°87 metre in height, 
and varying in width from 1°7 metre at the top to 1°42 
at the bottom, the two upper side stones converging slightly. 
The blocks are practically rectangular, the vertical joints 
not being always quite perpendicular, and are large, 
from 65 to 75 cm. in height. The lowest course projects 
slightly, and the buttresses project from 65 to 80 cm. 

A mile and a half further is the Madonna della Quercia, 
and a short two miles on, the site of the post-station of 
ad Novas or Vicus Novus; and here we may fittingly 
abandon the study of the Via Salaria, which we have 
already followed for a considerable distance beyond what 
are, strictly speaking, the limits of the Roman Campagna. 
plan do not agree with those of his elevation, the latter being, it 
would seem, correct. Apparently the scale of the former is about 


one-half too small, which would make the total length about 40 
metres. 


II 


THE VIA NOMENTANA 


Salaria at the Porta Collina, and ran to the Porta 
Nomentana of the Aurelian wall, through the garden 

of the British Embassy, some 75 metres to the S.E. of the 
present Porta Pia. The Porta Nomentana had two semi- 
circular towers with square bases; the right-hand tower, 
now removed, stood upon the tomb of Q. Haterius: of 
this tomb only a few blocks remain and not a vestige 
of an inscription. The left-hand tower is well preserved. 
About 60 metres of the pavement of the old road was 
found in the Villa Patrizi on the right of the road outside 
Porta Pia, and many other discoveries were made when 
the villa was pulled down and the headquarters of the 
railway administration constructed ; but the present road, 


T= ANCIENT VIA NOMENTANA diverged from the Via 


as far as the Citta Giardino Aniene, now presents hardly 


any archaeological interest ; new buildings have sprung 
up along it, and Rome is gradually spreading in this 


direction, so that all the old landmarks are vanishing fast. 


The road took a curiously indirect course, winding 
considerably. It was flanked by many tombs, and a little 
to the N. of the Castra Pretoria are the Catacombs of 
S. Nicomedes. On a Roman road to the N. of these again 
were found tombs of the late Republican or early Imperial 
period, including a fine sepulchral relief of a husband and 
wife. Some remains of a Christian cemetery were also 
discovered; but nothing of these can be seen now, for 
the modern road is so much wider than the ancient that 
it conveys no idea of what it was like, and much of what 
I saw when I first described the road twenty years ago 
has disappeared completely. 

82 


a 


THE VIA NOMENTANA 


The exact course of the road as far as S. Agnese has 
until lately been somewhat uncertain, though it can never 
have been far from the modern road; but the pavement 
was discovered in 1902 at the corner of the Via Pasqualina 
(now Via Pola), 2 metres below the present ground-level. 
At S. Agnese, if not before, the ancient road must coincide 
with the modern. 

On the W. is the round mausoleum of Constantia, 
daughter of Constantine, with the circus-shaped cemetery 
attached. The porphyry sarcophagus in it is now in the 
Sala della Croce Greca of the Vatican; the one opposite 
it comes from Torre Pignattara. 

In the garden attached to S. Agnese is the inscription, 
which runs: “Celeri Neronis Augusti l.a....0.,” which 
is thought by some to refer to Celer, one of the architects of 
the Golden House of Nero. The block of marble on which 
it was carved was converted into one of the capitals of the 
church of S. Agnese. 

The Via Nomentana went on from S. Agnese as far as 
the bridge on the line taken by the modern road ; along 
this modern road on the right we see a tomb in the 
enclosure wall of the Villa Blanc, but it is a reconstruction 
of one found on the Via Flaminia. A little further on 
the left, opposite the Osteria Mangani, there were remains 
of a wall in opus quadratum, belonging either to a tomb 
or to the crepido of the road itself (the wall of massive 
blocks, that is, which served as its edging), and in the 
construction of the fort on the right, just above the rail- 
way, the foundations of a large tomb were destroyed, and 
also remains of earlier burials—fragments of bones mixed 
with “ monochrome Italo-Greek iridescent pottery.” 

On the left-hand side of the road, some 200 yards away 
in the valley, is the tomb known as the Sedia del Diavolo, 
a very fine specimen of work of the second or third cen- 
tury A.D., consisting of two chambers one above the other, 
the upper one with fine ornamental brickwork. 

In the quarries to the N. are the foundations of a villa, 
with an extensive system of reservoirs for water storage 
cut in the rock. 

83 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


: 
P 
' 


The Via Nomentana now descends sharply to the valley 
of the Anio, and we soon reach the Ponte Nomentano. 
Very little of the original bridge remains; it is 
generally believed, like the Ponte Salario, to have been 
rebuilt by Narses, but it has been considerably trans- 
formed even since his day, and now only has one arch in 
use; it is crowned by a picturesque mediaeval tower. 
In 1849 it was cut for a length of 7 metres by the French, in 
their advance on Rome. 

Immediately after the bridge a hill rises on the right 
of the road, known as the Mons Sacer. 

This mount was the historic scene of the retirement 
of the plebs in 494 B.c. It will be remembered how, in 
resentment at what was considered an unjust law, the 
army marched out of Rome and settled here, intending 
to found a new city; and how the famous speech by 
Menenius Agrippa on the belly and its members reconciled 
them to Rome. Nowadays it is a far from pleasing spot, 
owing to unprepossessing surroundings ; but has a glorious 
view of the surrounding hills, and would have been a fine 
site for a town better laid out and built than the misnamed 
garden suburb (on the lucus a non lucendo principle) 
which now occupies it. 

If, as a recent theory has it, the plebeians were the 
dispossessed aristocracy of the Regal period, their con- — 
tinual struggles with the patricians have a very natural 
basis. It is pointed out by Hiilsen in support of his 
theory that the family names of all of the kings except 
Romulus and the Tarquins are those of plebeian gentes, as 
are the names of three of the hills of the Septimontium 
(the Caelius, Cispius, and Oppius). 

Here a road diverges to the N. which is now known as 
the Via delle Vigne Nuove (Road of the New Vineyards). 
This, though now it shows little trace of antiquity, is 
certainly an ancient road—i.e. the Via Patinaria; the 
cutting made for it to the W. of Casale Mangani may be 
noticed and also its straightness of line. A road branches 
off from it on the left, which is also ancient, now called — 


the Via della Buffalotta. To the E. of the Via Patinaria, — 
84 ; 
a 


THE VIA NOMENTANA 


a little further on, is the Casale Chiari, which occupied the 
site of a large villa, which is identified with the Villa of 
Phaon to which Nero fled and where he committed suicide. 
An interesting confirmation of this identification was a 
discovery made in 1891 of the cinerary urn of Claudia 
Kgloge, probably the old nurse of Nero, who, as Suetonius 
tells us, with Acte, provided for his burial. We also know 
the name of the road: the Catalogus Imperatorum notes 
** Nero occisus Patinaria via.”’ 

The large mediaeval tower (a later farmhouse has been 
built against it) called Torre Redicicoli, further along this 
road, occupies without doubt an ancient site; there are 
various fragments of coloured marble bricks, etc., to be 
seen about. Beyond this the road cannot be traced, and 
it most likely ran on N.E. to join the Via della Buffalotta, 
to which we may now return. To the E. of it, at the 
second kilometre, are traces of excavations, in which were 
found remains of dwelling-houses, two statuettes, a lead 
pipe, and some coins; they (the excavations) were made 
in 1831, and were closed as unsuccessful, after having 
employed twenty men for two weeks. To the N.E. again 
is the Casale della Cecchina. Just beyond there is a 
cutting traversed by the modern road, which seems to be 
of ancient origin: beyond this point there are no traces 
of antiquity for some distance. 

There are many paving-stones under the bridge which 
crosses the stream (Fosso Buffalotta), and the road con- 
tinues on the further side of it, still in a straight line 
(due N.) until it passes on the left the Chiesuola Buffalotta 
—a tomb of ornamental brickwork, the front being of 
yellow bricks, the sides of red. Soon after this it appears 
to divide into three branches, two of which turn N.W. to 
cross the Fosso Formicola, while the third keeps straight 
on. All the three must have fallen into the ancient road 
from Malpasso to Mentana. The first of the branches, 
which runs N.W., passes the remains of a villa on the S. 
and those of another brick tomb which faces N.W.; the 
Tuins to the N.W. of this are mediaeval, though they no 
doubt occupy an ancient site. Brick debris is to be found 

— 85 


| 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


all over this plateau. There is a circular chamber cut in 
the rock on the edge of the stream, into which run three 
water channels; the front of it has a plastered niche with 


traces of painting (rosettes, etc.), so that it may have been — 


a fountain, the front of which was ornamented—a kind 
of nymphaeum, in fact. Close by are caves, which may 
be pre-Roman tombs. 

Some way before the Fosso Buffalotta the Via di Tor 
S. Giovanni diverges to the right. This presents no 
definite traces of antiquity, but is very probably ancient, 
to judge by the existence of a few paving-stones at the 
fountain W.N.W. of the Casale Tor S. Giovanni, and of 
a cutting to the N.W., by which it would ascend to the 
plateau. About a kilometre N.N.W. of the casale are the 
remains of another villa in the banks of a stream, to 
which the road probably led. Whether it went further 
I do not know; but it may well have joined the others 
of which we have just spoken, on the high ground E. of 
Casale Marcigliana. 

In this district, we may say between Tor S. Giovanni 
and the Tiber, is to be sought the site of Crustumerium, 
though no remains of it exist. It is frequently mentioned 
in the early history of Rome: and according to Pliny 
and Livy it must have lain hereabouts: and though the 
place itself had entirely disappeared (the city was finally 
conquered in 500 B.c., the tribus Crustumina being formed 
probably in 471 B.c.), and Pliny—this time correctly— 
names it among the lost cities of Latium, the name 
seems to have clung to the district, the fertility of which, 
and especially the pears which it produced, remained 
famous. 

It was apparently on the edge of the Sabine territory ; 
it is mentioned, with Caenina and Antemnae, among the 
Sabine cities in the story of the rape of the Sabine women, 
but among the Prisci Latini by Livy and Dionysius, and 
the latter tells us that it was an Alban colony of far 
greater antiquity than Rome. There are various opinions 
as to its site, and it is impossible in the present state of 
our knowledge to be more exact. 

86 


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The 
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THE VIA NOMENTANA 


We now return to the Via Nomentana, which we left 
just beyond the bridge over the Anio. The cutting 
through the hill, by which the road descends to the stream 
before the fifth kilometre, is probably of ancient origin. 

The road descends again through a cutting of ancient 
origin, which has recently been deepened (two ancient 
drains cut in the rock being thus exposed), to a bridge 
over the Fosso della Cecchina, in which there were some 
traces of ancient paving years ago. Beyond is the Casale 
dei Pazzi on the right, with a picturesque group of 
pines. 

A little further along, on the right, is the brick tomb 
known as the Torraccio della Cecchina, or di Spuntapiedi: 
it is similar in construction to the Sedia del Diavolo, and 
is built of red and yellow bricks, the former in front, the 
latter at the sides. The lower chamber (not now accessible) 
had four niches, and was reached by a staircase on the out- 
side, while the upper chamber has four niches also. Both 
retain traces of decoration in painted stucco. The con- 
struction of the dome is similar to that of the Sedia del 
Diavolo. The fagade towards the road has two list 
windows, between which is a festoon in relief, cut in the 
_ brick. 

The cutting made for the old road, or for the extraction 
of its materials, can be seen on the S.E. edge of the modern 
road. 

A little further on the right are the Ruderi del Coazzo, 
of which everything standing is mediaeval, though the 
‘site is probably ancient. To the W. of them an ancient 
road diverges to the right (now known as the Strada 
Vecchia di Palombara or Via Palombarese, for it is still 
in use for the most part),1 while another diverged S. to 
the Via Tiburtina, past the Casale S. Basilio. | 

At the point where the first road leaves the Via 
Nomentana the cutting made for it is clearly traceable, 
and several paving-stones may be seen a little further on: 
while, after a couple of miles, the cuttings which run just 


1 The first part of it, which is purely modern, turns off at 
Capobianco. 
87 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


to the N. of the modern track are conspicuous, and there 
is pavement preserved in them. 

On the right, on a hill across the stream, is the large 
Casale di Marco Simone, or Castel Cesi (for to that family 
it belonged until 1678). It occupies in all probability an 
ancient site: immediately to the E. of it are vaulted 
substructures in concrete; while at the casale itself is 
a sarcophagus with a group of the Three Graces in the 
centre of the front under a large niche, and two other 
figures on each side in smaller niches. 

A mile to the N.E. is the Casale di Marco Simone Vecchio, 
where there are no traces of antiquity. 

The rest of the road into Palombara has no particular 
archaeological interest, and Palombara itself will be dealt 
with later. We now return to the Via Nomentana. 

Before the eighth kilometre-stone the modern road 
crosses over, leaving the ancient road on the left. There 
are various remains on the left of the road, of no great 
importance—of villas or tombs ; those at the point marked 
Ficulea on the Staff map belong to the former. 

The Casale Coazzo apparently occupies an ancient site ; 
there is a wall indeed in the floor of the yard, and fragments 
of columns, etc., are to be seen—also many ‘paving-stones, 
which, however, probably do not come from the Via 
Nomentana, the pavement of which, 4 metres wide, is 
intact for some distance. 

To the N. again, on the further side of a deep valley, is 
the Casale della Cesarina. 

Though the exact site of Ficulea remains somewhat 
uncertain (as is often the case with these ancient “ cities ”’ 
or villages of Latium), we know generally that it cannot 
have been very far from La Cesarina. It is certain that 
it lay on the road from Rome to Nomentum, between the 
two places, inasmuch as this road, according to Livy, was 
originally known as Via Ficulensis: and it was not far 
from Fidenae, for Varro speaks of “* qui tum ”—after the 
departure of the Gauls—‘ sub urbe populi, ut Ficuleates 
ac Fidenates et finitimi alii’? ; and Dionysius places the 
territory allotted to the Claudian tribe between Fidenae 
88 


ee 


THE VIA NOMENTANA 


and Ficulea. Nor was it far from the Monte Corniculani, 
for the same author classes it with the cities built by the 
aborigines. ‘‘ Antemnae, Caenina, Ficulea which lay 
towards the Montes Corniculani and Tibur.’’ Atticus, 
the friend and correspondent of Cicero, had an estate which 
lay on the boundary between the territory of Ficulea and 
Nomentum, so it is indifferently spoken of under either 
name: and Martial’s estate at Nomentum must also have 
been near the edge of Ficulea, since in Epig. vi. 27 he 
calls his friend Nepos bis vicinum, because he lived near 
him in Rome and out of it dwelt at ‘“‘ Veteres Ficeliae,”’ 
in the same neighbourhood as himself. The epithet vetus, 
which occurs also in Livy, may only refer to the fact that 
the origin of the place was lost in remote antiquity. 

An examination of the district helps us little to fix the 
site; there are no remains of an earlier date—the few 
ruins which we saw all belong to the Roman period, and 
sufficient evidence is entirely wanting. 

Returning to the Via Nomentana, we find a well- 
preserved piece of the ancient paving on the left, and 
just after the tenth kilometre-stone reach the so-called 
** Scavi del Papa S. Alessandro,” that is the basilica (there 
are in reality two) and cemetery of 8. Alexander (pro- 
bably not the Pope). It fell within the territory of 
Ficulea. There are a few galleries still preserved, but as 
a catacomb it is of little interest. 

A. little further on is the mediaeval Torraccio di Capo- 
bianco, into the upper part of which are built paving- 
' stones and marble: it rests upon an ancient tomb, the 
chamber of which is of tufa concrete with a barrel vault, 
while the exterior was faced with slabs of travertine. 

In excavations made in 1795 in the tenuta of Capo- 
bianco were found several inscriptions, one a dedication 
to Stata Mater, and amongst others an epitaph of a 
scurra, or jester; also a curious and _ interesting 
placard which was placed outside some baths: “ In this 
property of Aurelia Faustiniana you can take a bath as 
if you were in the city, in the city fashion, and you will 
enjoy every comfort.” Beside the inscription actual 

' $89 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES | 


remains of the baths were found, with a mosaic pavement 


(which was afterwards removed to Paris), with a hypocaust 


under it, supported alternately by terra-cotta tubes and 
brick pillars, about 8 Roman feet apart. The pavement 
was of geometrical design, and mainly in black and white. 

The pavement of the Via Nomentana is well preserved 
on both sides of the Casale di Capobianco; to the N.E. 
of it I measured the width of it as 14 feet. From Capo- 
bianco the road runs on almost due N. and considerable 
portions of the pavement are at first preserved. Further 
on is the prominent mediaeval watch-tower known as 
Torre Lupara. On the right of the road, at the fourteenth 
kilometre, is the Casale S. Antonio, which occupies a 
remarkably strong site, though what is to be seen there 
is purely mediaeval. The ancient road must now have 
run just to the right of the modern, which cuts through 
the foundations of some ancient buildings; and soon 
afterwards it turns off sharply to the N.E., making a steep 
ascent and descent, and rejoining the modern road, which 
keeps round the head of the Valle Valentino, just before 
the mediaeval Casale di Monte Gentile. According to an 
erroneous view, this was the site of Ficulea: whereas 
Nibby puts Caenina here. This place appears twice in 
the earliest history of Rome: (1) Romulus was sacri- 
ficing there (before the foundation of Rome) when Remus 
was captured by the shepherds of Numitor, and (2) it 
was from Acro, king of Caenina, that Romulus won the 


first spolia opima, in the battle following the rape of the - 


Sabine women, when the people of Caenina were the first 
to attack the Romans, but were easily defeated and their 
city taken. It figures in Pliny’s list of the lost towns 
of Latium: and of its site we really know nothing except 
that it must have been situated close to Rome, as it is 
mentioned in connexion with Crustumerium and Antemnae. 
It gave its name to a priesthood of the Roman State, 
which still existed in the time of the Empire. 

On the right, further on, is the large tomb, crowned by 
a mediaeval tower, marked in the maps as Torre Mancini. 

The road then descends steeply, and is protected on 
90 


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THE VIA NOMENTANA 


the descent by massive supporting walls, which keep up 
the bank on either side: they are in reticulatum and 
brick, with apsidal niches alternating with projecting 
buttresses, and weepholes to allow the moisture to escape. 
Those on the right are the more conspicuous, but those 
on the left have recently been cleared. 

The road descends steeply, and then reascends to 
Mentana, there being no traces of antiquity in the last 
portion. The modern village probably occupies the lower 
part of the site of the ancient Nomentum, which extended 
further to the E., the only side upon which there is space 
available; on the other sides, especially on the W. and 
S., the position is well protected by ravines. There are, 
however, no remains of walls or of buildings attributable 
to it to be seen in situ. The site is really fixed by the 
distance of 14 miles from Rome given by the Tabula 
Peutingerana, which leaves no room for doubt. Monte 
d’Oro, where remains of villas and statuary (including a 
youthful Bacchus) have recently been found, is over a 
mile too near to Rome, whereas the 14 miles take us just 
up to the modern village; and the name Mentana is 
obviously derived from Nomentum. Inscriptions have 
been found here too, in which its magistrates and priest- 
hoods are mentioned, though the exact site of their dis- 
covery is not known. As Dessau remarks, there was 
considerable doubt in the minds of the Romans them- 
selves whether Nomentum was to be considered to have 
belonged in origin to the Latin or to the Sabine race: 
though the former opinion rightly prevailed, we find that 
Vergil was sufficiently undecided to give both in two 
different passages ! 

Roads diverge from Mentana in various directions ; 
there is, in the first place, one running E. to join the 
road to Palombara. Another, of which we shall speak 
presently, runs due N. in continuation of the line of the 
Via Nomentana. A third runs W. to Monte Rotondo. 
A fourth is that which is supposed by some writers to be 
the Via Salaria, but wrongly. 

The line of road which we have seen leaving Mentana 

aka 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


on the N. side runs very slightly E. of N. to join the 
Via Salaria near the Fabbrica Palmieri, between the 
twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth mile from Rome. Though 
there is no actual pavement in sitw upon it, there is no 
doubt as to its antiquity. It may have served as an 
alternative route to the Via Salaria, as the distance by it 
is about the same, but it is a good deal more hilly; and 
it does not seem to have been much frequented, inasmuch 
as it is not to be found in the Tabula Peutingerana or in 
the Itineraries: and there are very few remains of 
antiquity along its course. 

In about another mile we reach the massive ruins of 
Grotta Marozza, which are those of a mediaeval fortress. 
The name (another form of Maria) is that of a member of 
the family of the Crescenzi, to whom it belonged. 

The Aquae Labanae mentioned by Strabo may be 
placed in this neighbourhood: there is a sulphur spring 
a little way S. of the villa marked in our map E. of Grotta 
Marozza, and another two and a half miles further N.E.— 
the former is no doubt that which bears the name Bagni 
di Grotta Marozza. 

To the N.E. of Grotta Marozza there are the remains 
of several other villas of no great importance. 

Returning to the road, which we left near Grotta Marozza, 
we find that it continues to run in a straight line, and 
there are some limestone paving-stones loose in the path. 
At the bridge over the Fosso Buffala there are some 
blocks of squared stone in the stream bed and in the 
bridge itself, probably belonging to the earlier structure : 


and on the ascent beyond it paving-stones may be seen 


in the field walls. The road now descends to the valley 
of the Fiora, turning sharply to the left. In a straight 
line with its course up till now is the lofty Torre Fiora, 
which is entirely mediaeval. Its great height is neces- 
sitated by the fact that it stands in very low ground. 

After this the road presents no features of interest until 
it joins the Via Salaria. 


92 


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III 


THE VIA TIBURTINA 


roads that issued from the gates of Rome, carrying 
a large amount both of local and of long-distance 
traffic. The road itself is, however, until the last part 
of its course, in no way remarkable either for the beauty 
of the country it traverses or for the difficulties which 
have had to be dealt with by its engineers. On the con- 
trary, until the actual ascent to Tibur begins, the road 
runs through a gently undulating and somewhat mono-. 
tonous district, and has no obstacles to contend with 
except the river Anio, which it twice crosses. The 
ascent to Tibur too, though fairly steep, presents no 
problems of engineering. The result is that the modern 
road has followed the ancient line pretty closely, and no 
deviations of importance are to be noticed until two- 
thirds of the distance have been traversed, in the 
neighbourhood of Bagni, where the change in the line is 
probably due to the inundations of the sulphur springs, 
which, until they were carried to the Anio by a canal 
(constructed by the Commune of Tivoli with help from 
Cardinals Ippolito d’Este and Bartolomeo della Cueva in 
the sixteenth century) ran unchecked over the plain. 

No milestones have been found between Rome and 
Tibur—that given by many authors as the fourteenth 
is a forgery. The positions of those which have been 
discovered further along the road, however, make it 
necessary that the distance between Rome and Tibur 
should have been twenty miles, as the Antonine Itinerary 
has it. This fact, however, involves us in considerable 
difficulties, which will be dealt with below. 


"Ts VIA TIBURTINA was one of the most important 


938 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


It is, further, by no means certain by which gate the 
original Via Tiburtina left the city. Hliilsen prefers 
the theory that the road from the Porta Esquilina is the 
original Via Tiburtina, though the name “ Tiburtina 
Vetus’ is not vouched for by any classical authority 
and is only retained for convenience. This seems to be 
the most probable supposition, inasmuch as the arch 
erected by Augustus in 5 B.c. for the passage of the Aquae 
Marcia Tepula and Iulia, bearing an inscription recording 
his restoration of them (which was incorporated in the - 
outer half of the Porta Tiburtina of the Aurelian wall) 
points to the importance of the road which passed under 
it, while we find that the straight road from the Porta 
Viminalis passed through the Aurelian wall by a small 
postern, which was closed at some unknown period. 
We may notice, too, that the earliest tombs which flanked 
the “ Tiburtina Vetus”? were found to date from the 
beginning of the Imperial period. 

Along the first part of the course of the road various 
discoveries have been made, the most notable being that 
of the “‘ Tomba della Medusa ” excavated in 1839, which 
lay on the N. of the road. It is a square chamber in 
opus quadratum of travertine and contained three fine 
_ sarcophagi (from one of which it takes its name) which 
are now in the Lateran. Other discoveries of tombs, etc., 
were made in the course of the work of building the great 
modern hospital (the Policlinico); but they are mostly 
of minor importance. 

Beyond the Policlinico the course of the road was not 
traceable, even before the changes caused by the growth 
of the city of to-day, but if prolonged it would fall into 
the line of the modern highroad near the point where it 
is joined by the so-called Via Cupa (dark lane), i.e. where 
it turns almost at right angles from N.N.E. to E. The | 
fact that this change of direction brings it into the same 
straight line with the road from the Porta Viminalis is 
certainly an argument in favour of the claim of the latter 
to be regarded as the original Via Tiburtina. The question 
is, in fact, one of considerable difficulty, and with the 
94 


THE VIA TIBURTINA 


evidence at our disposal it is difficult to arrive at a definite 
conclusion. 

We may now return to the Porta Tiburtina, now known 
as the Porta San Lorenzo, and follow the line taken by 
the modern road. 

The Porta Tiburtina was made up of two parts—the 
outer portion was formed by the aforementioned arch 
made by Augustus to carry the aqueducts, and on the 
outside Honorius added another arch and two towers 
flanking it. The inner arch was also constructed by 
Honorius, who restored the walls about a.p. 400, as the 
inscription records. The whole of the inner arch was 
removed by Pius IX in 1869. The tower on the right 
hand of the gate has in its base some travertine blocks 
from a tomb, one of which bears an inscription. 

The construction of a new quarter has completely 
altered the appearance of the Via Tiburtina between the 
gate and San Lorenzo, and all traces of antiquity have 
entirely disappeared. At some point before the first 
milestone was reached the tomb of Pallas, the freedman 
and Finance Minister of Claudius, was situated. 

The original basilica of San Lorenzo was erected by 
Constantine, but was quite small. Pelagius enlarged it, 
and Honorius III in 1218 built the forepart and destroyed 
the older apse, and also built the portico in front. 

The name “Campo Verano,” by which the modern 
cemetery is known, is of classical origin, coming perhaps 
from the possessors of the ground in Roman times. In 
one of the crypts of the extensive catacomb of S. Cyriaca 
S. Laurence was buried, and a site for the basilica was 
only obtained by cutting away the rock and thus destroy- 
ing a portion of the catacomb, in order to bring the tomb 
of the saint into its right position in the church—that is, 
in the centre of it, immediately in front of the apse. 
Many discoveries have been, and still are, made in the 
cemetery from time to time. 

A strong argument against the supposition of some 
writers that the Via Tiburtina passed through the Campo 
Verano is the fact that on the left of the modern high- 

' 95 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


road lies the catacomb of S. Hippolytus, which, had it 
not been divided from that of S. Cyriaca by the Via 
Tiburtina, would not have had a name of its own. The 
statue of the saint (now in the Lateran Museum) which 
was found here is important as being a genuine pro- 
duction of Christian Art of the third century after 
Christ. 

A little further on, the highroad crosses the railway to 

Florence. The construction of the bridge led to the 
discovery of a series of underground passages intended 
for use as cisterns and converted into a place of burial 
in the first century B.c. 
- The construction of the fort on the right of the road, 
some 500 yards to the N.N.E., led to the discovery of 
a large and splendid villa, belonging to the first century 
A.D. The drainage of the villa was extremely well 
arranged, all the rain-water being carefully collected and 
conveyed by shafts into a network of passages cut in the 
rock and lined with cement. At the bottom of one of 
these shafts a statue of Apollo was found. The tract of 
country bounded by the highroad on the S., the railway 
on the W., and the Anio on the N. and E., forms the 
Tenuta di Pietralata, and contains extensive tufa quarries, 
some of which may be ancient. 

There is nothing of interest until we reach the River 
Anio, which the modern road crosses by a new bridge, 
returning to the old line a mile further on; while the old 
Ponte Mammolo (a name which can be traced back as far 
as A.D. 1080) lies to the right. It was built of blocks of tufa 
and travertine, and one of its ancient arches still remains 
in part, though damaged in 1849, when it was broken by 
the French. Here the Emperor Henry V and Pope 
Paschal II concluded their well-known agreement over 
the investitures in 1111. 

Just where the ancient road is joined by the present 
line a branch road diverged from it to the N. Some 
traces of its pavement and of a group of tombs connected 
with it and of a large villa were found in excavations in 
1878 and may still be seen, though a quarry railway has 
96 


THE VIA TIBURTINA 


done a certain amount of damage. Whether it went as 
far as the Via Nomentana is uncertain. 

At Settecamini, the next point of interest, a road 
diverges to the left, and eventually reaches the village of 
Montecelio. Its antiquity—it cannot be recommended to 
the motorist, and is not even passable for carriages—is 
demonstrated by the cuttings made for it through the 
hills, and by the existence of some characteristic paving 
at one point. Some authors have, indeed, thought it to be 
the original Via Tiburtina; and, while this is uncertain, 
it must be confessed that, without a greater detour than 
is taken by the later road (following the present highroad 
more or less), it is impossible to arrive at the distance of 20 
miles from Rome which the Itineraries give. The number- 
ing of the milestones beyond Tibur would naturally have 
been maintained, even if a later improvement, made we 
know not at what period, shortened the distance from 
- Rome to Tibur to 184 miles. 

The country is bare and undulating, but was more 
thickly populated in antiquity: and one of the most 
interesting ruins in the Campagna is to be found close by 
the road half a mile N.E. of an extinct volcanic crater 
known as the Laghetto di Marco Simone. Here is an 
extremely well-preserved circular building constructed 
entirely below-ground, in the second century after Christ. 
It is so completely hidden that we only found it by noticing 
some bushes on an otherwise bare hill-side, which proved 
to be growing round the window on the S.W., by which 
alone it can now be entered. The roof is domed and, like 
the Pantheon, had a round hole in it to admit light and 
air: it is decorated with plain white mosaic, which is 
almost perfect—and is, so far as I know, the earliest 
dome in existence so decorated; the claim of that of the 
Imperial mausoleum at Spalato, which belongs to the time 
of Diocletian, being thus definitely set aside. The walls of 
the lower part are composed of very fine brickwork, and 
there is a brick cornice just below the dome. Where the 
entrance was, or what is the level of the floor, it is 
impossible to say, for the interior is full of debris; nor 

G 97 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


have I ever found any record of it since I first came upon 
it about twenty years ago. 

To the N.E. are the ruins of a small fortified village of 
the eighth century after Christ—a curtis, as it is called: 
the enclosure wall remains for some 100 yards on the W. ; 
but the church, which must have existed, has disappeared : 
while to the N.E. is a tomb of interesting construction. 
The internal chamber is in the form of a Greek cross, in 
which are four shafts for ventilation: on the top of it 
was a round drum. The whole was enclosed by a wall in 
which there were niches, constructed of concrete, faced, 
like the tomb itself, with opus reticulatum and brickwork, 
and probably belonging to the second century after 
Christ. 

Beyond this point the road presents no features of 
interest, and we may return to Settecamini. 

The name refers to the seven chimneys of the old farm- 
house, with its fine sixteenth-century door: but the num- 
ber seven alludes also to the seven sons of Santa Sinforosa, 
a martyr. The remains of the church dedicated to her 
were ¢xcavated in 187 8, and still may be seen, built into 
a modern house, on the edge of the tramway, a couple of 
miles further along. Rather over a mile due §. across 
the Anio is Lunghezza on the Via Collatina, to which a 
modern winding road turns off a little further back. 

On the left is the large mediaeval Castell’ Arcione, 
recently restored, with well-preserved walls and towers 
and a lofty square central keep. The name is that of a 
family of considerable importance in Rome in the thir- 
teenth century, to whom the castle belonged. A little 
way beyond it to the E. the pavement of the ancient 
road has come to light in a field, showing that it cut over 
the shoulder of the hill and avoided the windings of the 
modern road. 

To the N. is the conspicuous farmhouse known as Tor 
di Sordi, taking its name from another Roman family of 
the Middle Ages. 

A little further on the road emerges from the undulating 
pasture-land, which it has so far traversed, into a desolate 
98 


3. SULPHUR LAKE NEAR BAGNI (Pp. 99). 


[Anderson, Photo 


(p. 108). 


"Ss VIELA 


ER BATHS, HADRIAN 


tHE LARG 


4 


To face p. 99. 


THE VIA TIBURTINA 


flat plain, covered by the incrustations deposited by the 
sulphur springs of the Aquae Albulae. They are so con- 
siderable that a small lake known as the Lago dei Tartari, 
which was in existence not many years ago, is now com- 
pletely dried up and filled in: and if we follow the modern 
road to Montecelio, which turns off just here, and which 
probably presents an ancient line, up to the Lago della 
Regina, we shall find that it, too, is continually restricting 
its own area by the amount of deposit left on its banks 
(Fig. 3). The water is bluish, and strongly impregnated 
with sulphur and carbonate of lime. It was in use in 
Roman days, for on the W. bank of the lake are the con- 
siderable remains of a large building which was used as 
a thermal establishment—though its attribution to Marcus 
Agrippa and to Zenobia, the Queen of Palmyra, whom 
Aurelian brought in captivity to Rome, has nothing to 
recommend it. 

The building was decorated with statues of Aesculapius, 
Hygeia, Apollo Lycius, etc., with columns of verde antico 
marble, and other works of art; so that it must have 
been of a certain magnificence. A metrical inscription 
records that a man, whose name is unknown, dedicated 
to the nymph Albula, the tutelary deity of the springs, 
a bronze head of his wife, whose complexion had been 
restored by the use of the baths. Another dedication, 
with a portrait of himself, was set up by a man who had 
been suffering from the results of a wound by a wild boar 
at Rusellae in Etruria. Dedications to the Aquae Albulae 
and to Hercules by various people were also found, and 
this fact would seem to show in itself that they were 
available for pubic use. Another gave us only the name 
of Thespis, the founder of Greek tragedy, and was carved 
on a herma which once bore a head of him. 

A short distance to the E. is the Casale S. Antonio, 
near which is some flat ground which has been known as 
Conche ever since 1886: and inasmuch as we are told 
that Aurelian assigned to Zenobia a villa in the territory 
of Tibur, not far from the villa of Hadrian, nor from that 
place which is called Concae, the coincidence may be 

99 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


sufficient to establish this site. If not, it is at least 
sufficiently curious: and we shall not find that many of 
the traditional names for the ancient villas in the territory 
of Tivoli (the remains of which are both numerous and 
considerable) are as well vouched for as this. Thus, the 
attempt to find here the villa of Regulus, a lawyer of 
Martial’s time, is due to a false interpretation; it was 
really 4 miles from Rome, not from Tivoli. 

At the station of Bagni, on the highroad, is the modern 
bathing establishment, where in summer a bath in the 
sulphur water (the temperature being about 75° Fahr.) 
is not at all unpleasant, and the strong smell of sulphuretted 
hydrogen is not noticed after a short while. 

Immediately to the E. of it the railway to Tivoli and 
the Adriatic crosses the road: and after it we come to 
a surprisingly well-preserved portion of the ancient road. 
The road-bed, flanked by large blocks of travertine, is 
fairly well preserved; while its lava pavement has been 
taken up bodily and used in a modern wall: but on each 
side of it there are a number of sepulchral inscriptions 
still in position, on travertine cippi, which belonged to 
the tombs on each side of the road. They seem to belong 
to the end of the Republic. The road has been a good 
deal damaged by searchers for building material; and 
Pope Leo X, in a letter of 1519 to the people of Tivoli, 
thanks them for the blocks of travertine which they had 
allowed him to take for the building of S. Peter’s. 

To the W. of the quarries is the group of half-ruined 
houses known as the Casaccia del Barco, one of which 
stands on a large ancient tomb—a mass of concrete, with 
a circular chamber in the interior, lined with blocks of 
travertine. The name is a corruption of Parco, and 
alludes to the hunting-park of Cardinal Ippolito d’Este. 
But long before his day other princes of the Church had 
amused themselves here in a similar way. A poem 
written in 1503 by Cardinal Adriano Castellesi describes 
a, day’s hunting near the Aquae Albulae in company with 
Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, in which he makes Diana par- 
ticipate and recline at rest with him. Leo X and, in 
100 


THE VIA TIBURTINA 


March 1532, Cardinal Ippolito dei Medici took part in 
similar sports. 

The quarries must at that time have been completely 
abandoned, and their sheer walls of rock, covered by, the 
deposit of the Aquae Albulae (which after the classical 
period must have run unchecked on the plain), would 
have served as a useful enclosure for the various animals 
that were kept there. The working of the quarries was, 
as a fact, resumed only a few years ago, after having 
been, as it seems, entirely given up since Roman times. 

To that period, then, we must assign an aqueduct on 
arches which ends at the quarries, and can have no other 
raison d éire—despite the fact that its construction is so 
bad that it might be attributed to almost any age. The 
quarries were very extensive, and the large heap of refuse, 
_ close to the Anio, shows that the workings must have 
continued for many years. The quality of the travertine 
(Lapis Tiburtinus, or Tivoli stone, is its ancient name) is 
extremely good, and very different from that of the porous 
superficial deposit which is largely the product of the 
sulphur springs. 

We soon reach the bridge over the Anio, passing close 
to a small chapel dedicated to S. Hermes, erected by Pope 
Hadrian IV (Nicholas Breakspeare) in 1155, perhaps on 
the spot where he celebrated Mass on S. Peter’s Day, 
after he went to Tusculum with Frederic Barbarossa. 
Here the ancient road is joined by the modern, which 
presents no features of interest. The bridge is picturesque 
and very fairly well preserved, though the bed of the 
river, and consequently its level, has probably risen since 
Roman times, for little can be seen of the lower part of 
the bridge. It had five arches in stone, four of which can 
still be seen; but it has been repaired in mediaeval times. 
It bears the name of Ponte Lucano, which is already found 
in the twelfth century, though its origin is unknown (for 
the supposed inscription of M. Plautius Lucanus is a 
forgery). It was, of course, an important strategic point 
in the Middle Ages. Close by its E. end stands the large 
circular mausoleum of the Plautii, which was surrounded, 

101 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


like the mausoleum of Hadrian in Rome, by a low square 
base, of which little is now left. It is a remarkably fine 
specimen of a Roman tomb, but the chamber in the 
interior, which is circular, with the vault supported by a 
round pillar in the centre, is not accessible. The arms of 
Paul II, who restored it in 1465, still remain. It was built 
by M. Plautius Silvanus, who was consul in 2 B.c., for 
himself and his wife; as time passed his little son was 
buried there, then his son P. Plautius Pulcher and Tiberius 
Plautius Silvanus Aelianus, whose relationship to him is 
uncertain, but who is of interest as having taken part in 
Claudius’s expedition to Britain. 

At the tomb a road diverges to the right which, in 
ancient times as now, was an important link between the 
various roads radiating from Rome, serving as a means 
of communication between the Via Tiburtina and the 
Via Praenestina. It intersects the modern road to Poli 
at the Osteria delle Capannelle, and joins the Via Prae- 
nestina at S. Maria di Cavamonte. 

Between Ponte Lucano and Tivoli the exact course of 
the ancient road is at first undeterminable, as the ground 
is under cultivation and no traces of it remain: but it is 
almost certain that it ran in a fairly straight line to join 
the lane which eventually ascends past the Tempio della 
Tosse. The modern road runs further to the S., and, 
500 yards from the bridge, passes to the left of two ancient 
rectangular tombs, both built of large blocks of travertine, 
each of which serves as the foundation of a small modern 
house. The lower part of each tomb contained a chamber 
at the ground level, while the upper part was decorated 
with a bas-relief. One of the two, indeed, has still this 
decoration, a panel of Parian marble in which is repre- 
sented a man holding a horse by the bridle; while the 
relief belonging to the other is now in the Villa Albani, 
and its subject is, according to Mrs. Strong, a priest or an 
initiate, though it has more often been considered to 
represent the favourite occupations of the deceased. 

From an examination of the various MSS. of Pirro 
Ligorio we learn that these tombs formed part of a group 
102 


THE VIA TIBURTINA 


of four. The remains of the other two were still visible 
in his day, and indeed one of them he actually saw 
destroyed for building material. The relief of one of 
them, representing a large lion, is in the Palazzo Barberini 
in*Rome, while that of the other was apparently not 
preserved even then. 

It is not unnatural that these monuments should have 
been believed to be pillars which flanked the entrance to 
Hadrian’s Villa; and indeed they were imitated by 
Asprucci in designing the entrance to the Villa Borghese 
in Rome, close to the Muro Torto. But their inequality 
in size and other reasons make this idea an improbable 
one—even though it is probably quite true that the main 
road leading to Hadrian’s Villa actually passed between 
them. We may well believe, however, that there was 
another more direct road from Ponte Lucano, though the 
evidence is not entirely sufficient. A line which is cer- 
tainly ancient, on the other hand, and is probably of older 
origin, is that which runs in a, fairly straight line from the 
road from Ponte Lucano to Corcolle (itself a necessary line 
of communication) in an E.N.E. direction. It crosses the 
road mentioned above at right angles (some of its pave- 
ment is still preserved), and then ascends through the 
olives right up to the S. extremity of the city of Tivoli, 
where a piece of its pavement was found in 1883, just 
outside Porta S. Croce. It would seem that this was the 
most direct route from Rome to the important group of 
villas to the S. of Tibur, of which we shall speak later. 
But why did it start, not from Ponte Lucano, but nearly 
a mile to the S. of it? There is nothing in the configura- 
tion of the ground on either bank of the Anio to explain 
the reason, nor was there, so far as I know, any crossing 
of the river opposite to its termination; had there been, 
it would have led into a quarry district, thoroughly 
unsuitable for swift passenger traffic such as one would 
have expected between these villas and Rome. 

The villa begun by the Emperor Hadrian, according to 
his biographer, on his return from his first Journey to the 
East in A.D. 125, is situated just below the olive-clad 

* 103 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


slopes of Tivoli.t It recalls to our minds very different 
associations from those which the word “ villa” brings 
up in England, and even the great villas of the Renaissance 
must give place to its vast extent. The tourist who once 
ignorantly spoke of it as Hadrian’s village was not so far 
wrong as he seemed to be. Situated on a plateau between 
two valleys, both of them bounded by cliffs of volcanic 
rock—the characteristic red tufa of the Campagna Romana 
—its ruins occupy an extent of about 600 yards by 300, 
though its gardens no doubt extended a good deal further 
than the ruins. The site does not seem at first to be an 
attractive one, and its unhealthiness in mediaeval and 
modern times had made the choice of it appear even more 
strange. But at a greater elevation space for these 
immense buildings and the gardens which surrounded 
them would not have been available. 

Very little is known of the history of the villa. Its 
construction began in A.D. 125 and went on during the 
next ten years, during most of which time Hadrian was 
absent from Rome. On his return in 135 he retired there 
and continued to enlarge the villa, decorating it with 
works of art, until in 188 he was seized by the illness 
which caused his death. This, however, occurred at Baiae, 
whither he had caused himself to be removed. 

It is clear from the discovery of some imperial busts, 
the latest of which represents Elagabalus (a.p. 218-222), 
that the villa continued to be inhabited by Hadrian’s 
successors until that date at least, and there are indeed 
traces of work done there as late as the time of Diocletian, 
when it was still known as the Palace of Hadrian. But 
after this we know nothing of its history for over a 
thousand years: that Totila took up his quarters there 
in A.D. 544 is a mere conjecture, unsupported by any 
evidence. 3 

Earthquakes, no doubt, began the work of destruction, 
and then it shared in the general desolation of the Cam- 


1 A considerable portion of the text is reprinted from an article 
on Hadrian’s Villa which I contributed to Wonders of the Past, 
with the permission of the Editor, which I gratefully acknowledge. 


104 


THE VIA TIBURTINA 


pagna. It is noteworthy that its works of art were not 
removed elsewhere in ancient times, and that its ruins 
were not made use of in the Middle Ages for habitation, 
but only as a quarry for building material. There are 
indubitable traces of the use of its marble decorations 
for burning into lime—the fate of so much of the ancient 
marble with which Roman buildings were decorated. 

Pope Pius IT visited it in 1461, and gives an account of 
it which shows that it was then in much the same con- 
dition as it is now: “Age has destroyed the form of 
everything; ivy now clothes the walls that were covered 
with tapestries and cloth of gold; thorns and brambles 
have grown where tribunes sat, and snakes dwell in queens’ 
chambers ; so unstable is the nature of all things mortal.” 

With the Renaissance search began to be made for the 
rich series of art treasures which it contained. Some of 
the best finds were made in the first half of the eighteenth 
century, including the famous mosaic of the doves, and 
several portraits of Antinous, Hadrian’s young favourite. 
Later on, the Scotsman, Gavin Hamilton, made Hadrian’s 
Villa one of his chief centres of activity. The sculptures 
which he discovered went in part to the Vatican, but 
in the main to the Earl of Shelburne, and these last are 
still at Lansdowne House. Others were dispersed among 
various collections. The total number of works of art so 
far discovered in the villa, so far as we know, is well 
over 250, scattered all over the world in numerous public 
and private collections. 

The villa, we are told, contained imitations of the 
famous buildings which Hadrian (who was one of the 
most travelled of Roman Emperors) had seen and admired 
all over the known world; attempts have been made by 
the antiquaries to identify the ruins with the list of names 
given us—not always with success, or even with probability. 

There is, however, a key to what seems a chaos of 
miscellaneous ruins jostling one another in picturesque 
confusion, and that is the orientation of different parts 
of the villa. If we follow the archaeologists who take 
this as their guiding principle, we shall find that the whole 

105 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


falls naturally (leaving aside a number of outlying detached 
buildings, such as the two theatres and the connecting 
links between the various portions) into four main divisions, 
each centring round a large open space or courtyard : 
the group of the Poikile, that of the main palace, that of 
Canopus, and that of the “‘ Academy,” really a smaller 
palace. 

Taking these in order, we first come to the so-called 
Poikile, now approached by a beautiful avenue of cypresses, 
which derives its modern name from having been identified 
with the “ Stoa Poikile’”’ (the varicoloured portico) at 
Athens, so called from the paintings with which its walls 
were decorated. Whether the name be correct or not, we 
certainly have here a huge garden of the formal type once 
surrounded by a peristyle. Its shape is imitated from 
that of the stadium or hippodrome, a favourite one among 
Roman gardens. 

The N. wall is still standing to a considerable extent, 
and was detached from the rest, with a space at each end 
through which a chariot could pass. It was so arranged 
that one could walk or drive on one side or other of it, 
in the shade or in the sun, according to the season, at 
any hour of the day. From an inscription we learn that 
it bore the name of ‘‘ Porticus Triumphi ”’ (which it took 
from the building of that name in Rome), and that seven 
times its length was just over a mile. This was the length 
of the Roman “ constitutional,” and evidently the ancients 
liked to know the precise amount of ground they were 
covering, for other inscriptions of the kind have been 
found both in Rome and at Pompeii. 

The central space was no doubt occupied by a formal 
garden with box and laurel hedges cut into fantastic — 
shapes. We know them not only from a letter of Pliny 
the Younger, but from the frescoes (and in less degree — 
from the gardens themselves) at Pompeii, and from some ~ 
of the few formal gardens of the Renaissance villas of — 
Rome and its neighbourhood which have escaped the — 
caprice of altering tastes. . 

In the centre of it is a large open tank of the same — 
106 


THE VIA TIBURTINA 


shape as the garden itself. From the W. extremity a 
fine view of the desolate Campagna and of Rome itself— 
especially towards sunset—is to be had. This part of 
the garden is built out on an artificial terrace, and the 
arched substructures which support the main embanking 
wall were used to house the Imperial Guard or slaves. 
The so-called “‘ Barracks of the Vigiles ’ in another part 
of the villa should rather be considered to have been a 
storehouse, not only for food-stuffs, but for furniture and 
other objects of occasional use. 

The remainder of the group contains a very finely 
decorated room, which was probably used for a dining- 
room in summer, unfortunately much devastated by 
searchers after building material; it communicates with 
the so-called ‘‘ stadium,’’ perhaps simply another garden 
of that shape. Beyond it on the E. is another large court- 
yard with an open tank in the centre; under the colon- 
naded walk surrounding it is an underground passage, or 
cryptoporticus, to provide shelter from the rain or even 
from the Italian sun. 

To the N.E. of the first group lies the second, the Imperial 
palace proper, which is grouped round four main court- 
yards of varying size. The first of these is known, quite 
wrongly, as the “‘ Courtyard of the Libraries,’’ because 
the Greek and Latin libraries have been thought to be 
recognisable in some lofty buildings of irregular plan and 
uncertain use on one side of it. On another is the so- 
called ‘‘ Maritime Theatre,’’ which is probably not, as is 
so often believed, the reproduction of an island with a 
temple upon it which Hadrian had seen in his travels, 
but simply an aviary. Its chief part corresponds with the 
description given by Varro, and a Renaissance recon- 
struction according to his description shows this clearly.* 

Between this building and the so-called ‘* Poikile ”’ is 
the great hall, wrongly called the ‘‘ Hall of the Philo- 
sophers,”’ which, from its orientation, belongs in reality 
to the first group. Close by is a set of baths, the only 

1 The work of Pirro Ligorio—see p. 102, and cf. Mem. Amer. Acad. 
II. pl. vi. p. 12; Journal of Roman Studies, ix. 66. oa 

10 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


portion of the villa which has been excavated in the last 
few years; they have their arrangements for heating still 
remarkably well preserved. 

At the opposite end of the courtyard is a building 
known as the ‘‘ Hospitium ”’ or guests’ quarters—perhaps 
correctly, for here we have a number of small chambers, 
five on each side opening on to a central hall, each con- 
taining three niches for a bed. The mosaic pavements of 
the floors are remarkably well preserved. Close by is a 
terrace overlooking the valley on the N.E. which is 
generally identified with the Vale of Tempe, which is 
now planted with beautiful trees. Further on to the 
S.E. are other sections of the palace—the part known as 
the Piazza d’ Oro is perhaps especially interesting nowa- 
days to the student of architecture, for many problems 
relating to the construction of the dome find here their 
first solution, and we may trace here the origin of some 
of the most important features in the great bate of 
the period of Constantine. 

The ordinary visitor, if he is lucky enough to be there 
in the late spring, when there is no chance of frost or rain, 
will see some of the beautiful mosaic pavements with 
which the whole villa was once decorated, but he will 
have to trust to his imagination for the rest. For the 
concrete walls, faced in part with brickwork, in part with 
small voleanic stones, grey or brown, have lost the veneer 
of marble, painted plaster, or stucco with which they were 
once entirely covered both inside and out. The columns 
that supported the roof of the peristyles, or decorated the 
interior of once splendid halls, have gone, and their place 
is only in some measure supplied by the grey-green olives 
which grow in most of the open spaces of the villa. 
In the spring, too, the brilliant colours of the mosaics are 
almost surpassed by the wild violets and purple anemones 
for which Hadrian’s Villa is famous. 

The third group lies farther to the S., and contains 
two separate groups of baths—the smaller of very elabor- 
ate plan, with rooms of various shapes cleverly fitted in, 
paved with many-coloured marbles. The larger (Fig. 4) is 
108 


THE VIA TIBURTINA 


remarkable for having in one of its halls a beautiful piece 
of ceiling decoration in stucco. The main feature of the 
group, however, is the Canopus, which took its name from 
a city 15 miles from Alexandria on a canal branching off 
from the Nile, celebrated for a temple of Serapis. Hadrian 
constructed a reproduction of the canal and of the temple, 
excavating an artificial valley some 200 yards long, with 
a great niche at the end of it decorated with fountains. 
The works of art which adorned it were a mixture of pure 
Egyptian art and of imitations of the Roman period, and 
a considerable number of them have been found at various 
times. It is uncertain whether the fine statue of Antinous 
in Egyptian costume was found here or elsewhere in the 
villa. 

Close by is the fourth and last group, the so-called 
‘“‘ Academy,’ which is in reality simply a smaller palace 
arranged round a courtyard. It was decorated with 
splendid works, the mosaic of the doves, the two centaurs, 
the red marble faun—all now in the Capitoline Museum. 


The Villa Bulgarini marks the S.E. point of Hadrian’s 
Villa, and to the S. of it is the Colle S. Stefano, on which 
lie the remains of another large villa. They were treated 
as a part of Hadrian’s Villa until recently ; Winnefeld was 
the first to exclude them; and a few years later, from the 
discovery of the fragments of a slab with an inscription on 
each side of it, it became probable that they belonged 
first to one C. Julius Plancius Varus Cornutus, probably 
the adopted son of C. Julius Cornutus Tertullus, Pliny the 
Younger’s colleague in the consulship in a.p. 100. It then 
belonged to Vibius Varus, who was governor of Cyprus 
under Hadrian, and consul in 4.p. 134.1. The brick-stamps 
begin with the middle of the first century after Christ and 
go down to A.D. 128. 

The principal building is a large rectangular platform 
facing S.E., upon which there was a large peristyle 100 feet 
square, excavated at the end of the eighteenth century. 
It was surrounded by rooms, especially on the S., with 


1 Baddeley, Villa of the Vibii Vari. Gloucester, 1906. _ 
109 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


a fountain on the W. At present, however, nothing is to 
be seen but a rectangular chamber, decorated with niches 
internally, at the S. angle above the deep ravine of the 
Fosso di Ponte Terra. In this chamber, it is said, was 
found a slab of marble bearing the inscription Lucu(s) 
Sanctu(s): but whether it was originally set up here is 
rather doubtful, inasmuch as this could hardly be called 
a sacred grove. It is more likely that it was built into 
the enclosure wall of an actual sacred grove not far off. 

The construction of this chamber is extremely irregular, 
though not dissimilar to that which is found in Hadrian’s 
Villa itself. The platform was partly surrounded by a 
cryptoporticus, decorated with painted portraits of Greek 
poets. A century ago the names of some of them could 
be read, but they are now obliterated. 

The N.E. side of the peristyle is continued N.E. by a 
substruction wall strengthened with buttresses. At the 
S.E. extremity of this wall is the supposed amphitheatre 
—really, it would seem, a water reservoir with four or five 
concentric walls of elliptical shape, the respective diameters 
being 184 feet (56 metres) and 112 feet (34°20 metres). 

To the N. of this reservoir is a Christian baptistery, 
hexagonal in plan, preserved to a considerable height. It 
belonged no doubt to the church of S. Stephen, which 
gave its name to the hill. It is possible that Ligorio 
actually saw the church—a basilica with nave and two 
aisles—though nothing is now to be seen. 

To the N.W. is a lower terrace with a large exedra, 
projecting northwards. The substruction walls probably 
extended even further, but cannot now be traced. Remains 
of other cisterns are to be seen, including a large trape- 
zoidal open tank: and to the N.E. of this there is yet 
another platform with traces of buildings upon it. 

These important buildings were approached by two 
roads, both descending southwards from Tivoli—one a 
branch of the road ascending to Porta S. Croce and the 
other a branch of the Strada di Carciano. They intersect 
on the Colle di S. Stefano, and both cross the deep Fosso 
di Ponte Terra which lies to the S. of it—the westernmost 
110 


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6, VILLAGE OF S, VITTORINO (p. IIT). 


To face pi-1L1, 


THE VIA TIBURTINA 


by a large viaduct, a massive structure in concrete 56 feet 
(17 metres) high and 14 feet (4°10 metres) wide, with two 
tiers of arches, one below and four above. It lies in very 
picturesque surroundings (Fig. 5). The other road—a lane 
not more than 64 feet wide—is crossed by a natural bridge 
in the rock, spanning a cleft which, if not entirely artificial, 
has certainly been enlarged by the hand of man. The 
channel is about 200 feet in length, 30 in height, and 6 in 
width, and is one of the many examples of the regulation 
of streams by the Romans which a careful examination of 
the Campagna will reveal. 

After crossing the plateau to the S., the road may have 
led on to the picturesque site of the village of S. Vittorino 
(Fig. 6). It occupies a naturally strong position, but there 
is no evidence to prove whether it was occupied in Roman 
times or not. 

Returning to the older—though perhaps not the oldest— 
line of the Via Tiburtina, we find that, at or near the site 
of the eighteenth milestone, an inscription recording the 
repair of the steep ascent to Tibur (the Clivus Tiburtinus) 
under the Emperors Constantius and Constans between 
A.D. 840 and 850 was found in 1735. It has been re- 
erected where it was found. A similar inscription may 
refer to the repair of the Ponte dell’ Acquoria, which 
crosses the Anio below us to the left. The road to it 
branches off at the top of the slope, just before which we 
pass on the right the so-called Tempio della Tosse—a name 
which might come from M. Turcius Secundus Apronianus, 
who was in charge of the repairs to the road, and who 
may have built it as his family mausoleum. It is a 
picturesque octagonal structure with a domed roof and 
a circular interior—perhaps a tomb: and it has been 
drawn and studied by artists and architects of all times 
and all nations, who of course have been specially busy 
at. Tivoli. 

The same is the case with the next ancient building we 
reach ; for a little higher up our road, in an arched passage, 
goes under the huge substructions of the building known 
till a century ago as the Villa of Maecenas. It was con- 

111 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


structed on the road, as two inscriptions record, by two 
local officials, the quattuorvirt L. Octavius Vitulus and 
C. Rustius Flavus, in accordance with a decision of the 
senate of the town: and was certainly, as many recently 
discovered inscriptions show, a building connected with 
the cult of Hercules and Augustus, and in fact formed 
part of the great temple of Hercules Victor, the protecting 
deity of Tibur. The arches support a square courtyard, 
surrounded by arcades, in the centre of which were struc- 
tures perhaps belonging to a temple: but the whole 
interior of it is now occupied by a paper mill. The temple, 
like that of Fortune at Praeneste, extended from the 
Imperial period onwards right up the hill-side, being formed 
of a series of great terraces, supported by massive sub- 
structures and arcades: and the cella of the temple itself 
was here, too, circular, and is still to be seen behind the 
apse of the cathedral. Like the building we have been 
describing, it is also of opus incertum, and probably dates 
from before the Imperial period. It seems possible, 
inasmuch as a forum and a vicus patricius are referred to 
in the neighbourhood of the Cathedral of Tivoli in a 
document of a.D. 978, that, as Pacifici thinks, the original 
temple of Hercules was comparatively small, and situated 
in the forum of the late Republican period, to which he 
also attributes the arched substructions under the Piazza 
dell’ Olmo and the massive stone arch with a large hall 
attached to it on the way up to the cathedral. 

Then, in the Augustan Age, when, as it would appear 
from the inscriptions, Augustus and the Imperial House 
came to share the divine honours of Hercules—the old 
guild of worshippers of the one took on the worship of 
the other, so that the very treasury of Hercules came to 
be officially called the treasury of Hercules and Augustus. 
It was then that the temple was largely extended down 
the hill and the so-called Villa of Maecenas built. And it 
was then that one M. Varenus Diphilus, ‘“‘ Magister 
Herculaneus,”’ built a hall close to the old temple, con- 
taining the public weights and measures of Tibur; in 
which, perhaps, was the relief of Hercules Tunicatus 
112 


8. NYMPHAEUM UNDER S. ANTONIO, TIVOLI (p. I14). 
To face 7p. 113° 


THE VIA TIBURTINA 


mentioned by Pliny, and near to which a little while ago 
was found in another chamber a statue of an emperor 
and a head of Nerva (which, however, does not fit on to 
it). An inscription shows that this little chamber was 
erected by the same man with a prayer for Augustus’s 
safe return during one of his last journeys. 

It is of this enlarged temple that the writers of the 
Imperial age speak—Juvenal, who mentions it as resembling 
the temple of Fortune at Praeneste, and Martial, who 
calls Tiber itself Herculeum. A reconstruction of it by 
a competent architect is much to be desired, as a parallel 
to Mr. Bradshaw’s work at Praeneste. 

In the lower part of the picturesque mediaeval town, 
then, we have to seek the site of this great sanctuary. 
But more famous still are the two small temples—one 
circular with Corinthian columns, the other rectangular 
with Ionic columns—which stand at the top of the town, 
on a rock above the old waterfall of the Anio. The rock 
would probably have been eaten away by now had not 
Gregory XVI had a new channel made to carry off the 
river further away from the town, out of danger. 

The two temples are traditionally attributed to Vesta 
and the Sibyl of Tibur—for Varro adds Albunea, a water 
goddess worshipped on the banks of the Anio, to the nine 
Sibyls of whom the Greek writers speak (Fig. 7). 

This lofty point, well defended by the Anio, must have 
been the citadel of the ancient city, though the line of its 
walls cannot be traced by any actual remains. It was 
founded, according to tradition, by Tiburtus, Corax, and 
Catillus, grandsons of Amphiarus of Argos, and the last 
has given his name to the Monte Catillo above the modern 
railway station. This hill Turner, among many others, 
climbed for a view of the town and the deep gorge of the 
river. Tivoli is on the edge of the Sabine mountains, 
guarding the pass to the upper valley of the Anio and the 
interior of the complicated mountain system which forms 
the backbone of the peninsula and extends uninterruptedly 
as far as the Adriatic. It must, in the days of its inde- 
pendence, have been a very powerful city, with roads 

H 113 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


leading to the outlying forts by which its sway was 
maintained. 

It came into collision with the Romans in the fourth 
century B.c., and thrice the latter were able to celebrate 
triumphs over it; but it did not lose its independence, 
more wisely becoming an ally of Rome. In the later 
centuries of the Republic, and under the Empire, it was 
a favourite summer resort, and both Augustus and Maecenas 
had villas here, and—though it be disputed by some—I 
think Horace also. It is certain that a house was shown 
as his during the time of Suetonius; and there is no 
adequate reason for doubting the truth of the tradition. 
As Mr. G. H. Hallam has convincingly shown, no site 
suits Horace’s frequent references to Tibur half so well as 
the villa of the Augustan period under the monastery of 
S. Antonio, facing the waterfall—giving, not on to the open 
Campagna, like the great villas to the S., but on to the 
wild and romantic gorge of the Anio, where there was 
room for but a few others. A good deal of this villa is 
still preserved, and notably a fine nymphaeum (Fig. 8). 

A little further on and further down is a projecting 
spur covered with olives; and here are the remains of 
an immense villa. The site has been called Quintiliolum 
‘since the tenth century, and the attribution to Quintilius 
Varus, the friend of Horace, is therefore to be accepted. 
The remains are picturesque: they consist of an upper 
terrace, upon which the house must have stood—in the 
sides of it is a ecryptoporticus, an underground passage 
lighted only by a few windows, which was always cool 
and fresh in summer. On the lower terrace is a large 
open tank, and near this the great supporting wall of the 
S.W. end falls off sheer to the slopes below. 

Here we have a choice of two routes, if we will explore 
the territory of Tibur on the N. We may follow on along 
the hill-side, where the modern road runs, sometimes above, 
sometimes below the railway: or we may descend to the 
Ponte dell’ Acquoria, and thence traverse the vineyards 
at the foot of the hills. In either case we shall find a 
district full of remains of antiquity, and be able to realise 
114 


THE VIA TIBURTINA 


that the modern habit of villeggiatura has its roots deep 
in the customs of the Rome of the late Republic. If we 
take the first road we shall be following one of the roads 
which led from Tibur down to a detached fort on the hill 
known now as the Colle Turrita (from a mediaeval castle 
which crowns it) above Palombara—Marcellina railway 
station. The modern road has in part obliterated it, but 
remains of its supporting walls of large blocks of stone 
~may still be seen, and there are similar remains within the 
castle. Originally the road went no further. But later 
on—we do not know when—it was prolonged past Mar- 
cellina, Palombara, and Moricone (we must give the 
modern names, because no ancient names are known to 
us) until it reached the Via Salaria at the twenty-sixth 
mile from Rome. It thus formed a very important inter- 
mediate line of communication for the whole of this 
district. 'The remains of villas which lie on its course, on 
sites sheltered from the E. and N.E. by the lofty Monte 
Gennaro and its spurs, are far too numerous to be men- 
tioned individually ; and I may only remark here that 
_ many of them have platforms of limestone in the so-called 
Cyclopean style. 

Again, when we reach Palombara, we shall find terrace 
walls of rough construction on the mountain-side—several 
of them one above the other, which are either the sites of 
prehistoric settlements or (more probably) perhaps terraces 
for supporting the soil for cultivation—lynchets, as they 
would be called in England. Still, we cannot give a name 
to them—and the attempt to find sites for what have 
been called ‘‘ the lost and mislaid cities of Latium ”’ has 
been proved to be unsuccessful. 

We may return, then, to the lower road northward from 
Tivoli, which crossed the Anio by the Ponte dell’ Acquoria. 
This bridge must have had originally some seven arches, 
of which only that at the N. extremity is preserved ; 
but the pavement may be seen to the N. of it, and the 
ancient road ran on in a straight line for a mile or two, 
passing to the left of the villa attributed to Ventidius 
_ Bassus with its three great terraces, between Colle Nocelle 
115 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


and the S. end of the Colle Vitriano, both of which have 
numerous remains of large villas well provided with water 
reservoirs. One of the former (Fig. 9) is interesting, 
having its lower platform supported by a wall over 160 feet 
in length of large limestone blocks with almost horizontal 
courses, strengthened by small buttresses. The magnifi- 
cence of the house that once stood there is shown by the 
remains of coloured marbles which are to be found every- 
where, and remains of a bath and of the furnaces by which 
it was heated may still be seen. 

If we follow the road, we find it turning N.W. until 
it reaches an important ancient road junction, near the 
modern Casale Battista, close to the railway. Here, 
besides the road we have been following, we can trace four 
others. One was more or less identical in line witha 
modern road from the Via Tiburtina at Ponte Lucano, 
which runs up over flat and uninteresting country and 
goes on (probably not following an ancient line) to Mar- 
cellina. A second is a prolongation of the road which 
left the Via Tiburtina at Settecamini, and which thus 
formed the most direct route from Rome to this district. 
It goes on in an N.E. direction up and along a hill known 
as the Colle della Colonnella, and falls into the ancient 
road from Tivoli to the Via Salaria. That is the third 
branch; and the fourth is the prolongation of the line 
we have been following, N.N.W. up the valley to the E. 
of the village of Montecelio, with a branch to Palombara. 
Montecelio itself, and S. Angelo to the W. of it, were 
approached from Rome by a branch of the Settecamini 
road; while Palombara was also served by a branch 
from the Via Nomentana. The country has by now 
become a good deal more hilly, and, as far as appearances 
go, any one of the hill-towns might justifiably lay claim 
to the name Corniculum, as we can hardly fail to call the 
whole group the Montes Corniculani. If we have to 
assign the name Corniculum to any one of them, it would 
be to Montecelio (the modern corruption of the old name . 
Monticelli). For here, under the mediaeval fortification 
walls of the castle which crowns the conical hill-top, there 
116 


9. PLATFORM OF VILLA, COLLE VITRIANO (p. I16). 


10. TERRACE WALL OF VILLA OF BRUTUS (?) (p. 121). 


To face p. 116. 


% 


oe 


THE VIA TIBURTINA 


are the remains of walls in rough stone, which seem to 
belong to the primitive enceinte. 

Within the area of the castle there is also a small 
Roman temple, built of brick-faced concrete, resting on 
a stylobate about 5 feet high, and measuring some 26 by 
14 feet; some pilasters with Corinthian capitals are still 
preserved. The brickwork is very good, and was probably 
meant to be left visible. 

Both E. and W. of the village there is a very large villa 
platform—the former in the valley below, close to the 
fourth road mentioned as branching off from Casale 
Battista, and the latter on the slopes traversed by the 
road from Rome, on which indeed it lay. A large open 
oval reservoir lies above it, while the villa itself has two 
great terraces, the upper being about 100 paces square, with 
a large cryptoporticus inside its supporting wall, and the 
upper 240 paces one way and 140 the other. 

The pavement of the old road can be seen descending 
the hill, and it then fell into the line of the road from 
Settecamini, partly represented by the modern road from 
the station of Montecelio to S. Angelo, on its steep conical 
hill. At this latter village, years ago, I searched in vain 
for some polygonal walls which were actually drawn by 
- Gell close to the church of S. Liberata, to the S. of the 
village ; and on a second visit I was equally unsuccessful, 
so that I can only conclude that they have been destroyed. 
But there are remains of antiquity of some interest at the 
foot of the hill, both N. and S. of the village. On the S., 
at Vallemara, there is a particularly well-preserved villa 
platform with a very perfect cryptoporticus and a large 
reservoir 100 Roman feet long above it, divided into three 
chambers each 114 feet wide; while there are on the N. 
three circular cavities, once quarries, one of which was 
lined with concrete in Roman days, and used to contain 
an open reservoir some 80 feet in diameter and 6 deep: 
and not far off are the terrace walls of a very large villa, 
one of them being no less than 240 feet long and 10 high. 
It is built of almost rectangular blocks of hewn stone, 
well jointed and smoothed at the edges; and inasmuch 

es 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


as it lies in low ground and in a hopeless position for 
defence, it is impossible to identify it (as some, mistaking 
its age and its object, have attempted to do) with 
Ameriola, one of the lost cities of Latium once subdued 
by Tarquin the Elder. To the W. we soon reach the 
modern road to Palombara, into which come two branches 
from Mentana, both of them probably of Roman origin. 
The first has recently been made to take wheeled traffic, 
but the second is a bridle-path : it passes the little hamlet 
of Castel Chiodato, and where it falls into the modern 
road the latter turns E. and runs straight to Palombara, 
another village situated picturesquely on a hill, but con- 
taining no relics of antiquity. A mile or more before we 
reach it, to the right of the road 1 in a sheltered valley lies 
the picturesque church of S. Giovanni in Argentella, 
containing some interesting mediaeval frescoes. 

Palombara, too, was an important road centre in 
antiquity ; for here the road from Tibur to the Via 
Salaria was joined by the Via Nomentana and the road 
from Nomentum by a road from Casale Battista, and 
by another road coming S.E. from the twenty-first mile 
of the Via Salaria. It is not inappropriate to call atten- 
tion to this fact, for until quite recent years, as we have 
already remarked, the ancient Roman road system in 
the Campagna, which resembled a spider’s web, had lost 
all but its main lines, so that the modern roads radiated 
from Rome in the centre like the rays of a starfish, without 
any cross connexions. 

From Palombara we may return to Tivoli, and complete 
our study of the territory by leaving the town on the S. 
and glancing for a few minutes at the group of villas which 


are to be found on the slopes of the Monte Ripoli and — 


Monte Arcese, commanding a wonderful view over the 
Campagna and the Alban Hills, especially at sunset, when 
the sun sinks behind the great dome of S. Peter’s. First 
of all, the Villa d’Este claims our attention; for it will 
give us as good an idea as we shall get from any existing 
building of the elaborately decorated fountains which 
played such a part in the architecture of the gardens of 
118 : 


ee ee 


THE VIA TIBURTINA 


the villas of the classical period. The villa itself is un- 
finished, and has lost the collection of statues which its 
constructor, Cardinal Ippolito d’Este, had excavated here 
and collected there until it became of considerable value 
and importance. Most of it has been dispersed to the 
four winds, and only a very few of the least valuable still 
remain. But, even were this not so, we should never 
visit Villa d’Este to see them only. Its charm is far 
greater now, I am sure, when its fountains are moss- 
grown and half-decayed, than when once decorated, as 
engravings show, with rather blatant mosaics and late 
Renaissance stone statues and architecture, plastered over 
and painted in glaring colours, not in very good taste. 
Its charm is added to by its great cypresses and the 
wonderful views N. to the pointed Corniculan Hills, and 
westward over the Campagna, with the modern highroad 
like a white ribbon thrown down carelessly—for it does 
not run straight by any means. Since the war the villa 
has passed from the Hohenlohe family to the Italian 
Government, and will at least be taken care of and 
repaired when necessary and, we hope, kept up, but not 
too drastically. 

The road, after leaving Tivoli, very soon divides. The 
Via di Carciano, as it is called, keeps up on the level above 
the road to Rome; and the same was done by the 
channels of the great aqueducts which conveyed the water 
of the river itself, or of copious and excellent springs 
(which form the main supply of the modern city) in its 
valley, from the upper Anio to Rome. Remains of these 
channels may be seen along the road,! and in some places 
all the four—the uppermost the Anio Novus, then the 
Aquae Claudia, then the Marcia, and then the Anio Vetus 
—may be seen together or not far away from one another. 
Accurate levelling along the whole of their course was 
necessary to distinguish one from the other, and this was 


1 The first piece visible was a portion of the channel of the Aqua 
Marcia cut in the rock, passing behind a rock-cut tomb, just after 
the modern Strada di S. Gregorio turns off to the right to the village 
of that name. It has, however, quite recently been covered up 
with earth. 

"119 


i 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


undertaken for me in 1915 by three Italian engineers, 
the late Professor Reina and his assistants, Signor G. 
Corbellini and Signor G. Ducci. I will not speak of them 
in detail, as I hope shortly to publish a full description 
of them. 

The Via di Carciano is also remarkable for the great 
beauty and age of the olive groves through which the road 
passes. Of the dozen or so ancient villas which may 
be found along its course and on the slopes below it we 
need only speak in detail of three. The first is just at 
the twenty-fifth kilometre of the modern highroad—in a 
place known as pesoni as early as the tenth century— 
and it has therefore been labelled Villa of the Pisones— 
though which Pisones we do not know. More important 
is the fact that here were seen in the fifteenth century 
a number of hermae (twelve or thirteen it would_seem) 
of Greek philosophers and poets, all without heads, while 
sixteen others, with heads, were discovered in 1779, and 
are now in Madrid. At the latter date the famous head 
of Alexander now in the Louvre was discovered. A few 
years earlier, twenty-one similar hermae, some with heads, 
some without, were found a good deal higher up the hill, 
where there are two great villas, each with its terraces, 
just below the first part of the Strada di Carciano, which 
is a corruption of Cassianus, a name found as far back as 
the tenth century. What more natural, then, to suppose 
that one was the villa of Cassius and the other the villa 
of Brutus—especially as Cicero speaks of a villa of Brutus 
at Tivoli? As far as date goes, the attribution would 
be quite possible, and the only difficulty is to decide which 
is which, in the absence of any other proof ! 

There has naturally been a good deal of confusion. 
From the sixteenth century to the last quarter of the 
nineteenth the northern one of the two, just below the 
summer residence of the Irish College in Rome (originally 
built by Cardinal Salerno for the Greek College, and 
therefore often called Villa dei Greci), bore the name of 
Cassius. Its terrace walls are faced with opus reticulatum, 
in which decorative patterns are made by the use of 
120 


a et ee Oe 


THE VIA TIBURTINA 


stones of various colours. On the upper terrace there is 
a nymphaeum with a large central niche, and a portico 
with Doric columns to the right of it ; while in the central 
one there is a cryptoporticus with an arched passage 
behind. 

The southern villa, some 500 yards further on, imme- 
diately to the N. of the narrow bend of the highroad 
(called Regresso from the fact that the engine of the 
steam tramway has here to take the other end of the train), 
is quite different. The central terrace has a huge polyg- 
onal supporting wall 40 feet long and 20 high at the 
N. end, while at the S. it is supported by a wall of concrete 
faced with opus reticulatum, with buttresses connected 
by arches (Fig. 10); while the lower terrace is of opus 
incertum with buttresses and arches. 

Now, all the earlier writers naturally call this the villa 
of Brutus; and it only began to be called the villa of 
Cassius in the documents relating to the excavations of 
1773, continued in the following years by order of Pope 
Pius VI. But in any case, it seems clear that the hermae 
were found in the southern villa—and with them statues 
of Apollo and eight of the Muses, and various other statues, 
most of which are in the Vatican, though a group of a 
faun and a nymph found its way through the hands of 
Thomas Jenkins into Charles Townley’s collection and so 
into the British Museum. 

The road goes on for some three miles through the 
olives, passing another villa where other polygonal walls 
attracted Dodwell’s attention, until it reaches the farm- 
house of Gericomio.! This was built in 1579 by Cardinal 
Prospero Santacroce as a refuge for his old age; and the 
quiet peace of this remote corner of the world certainly 
commends it as an appropriate haven of rest. There is 
‘perhaps no place like the Roman Campagna for losing 
sight of modern life for a while, and acquiring that mental 
repose which is so great a relief now that Rome, alas! 
has become one of the noisiest cities of Europe. 


1 Gericomio is an Italianised form of I’epokoyeiov, which appears as 
Iepovtoxopeioy in the code of Justinian. 


121 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


On the hill above Gericomio—the Monte S. Angelo in 
Arcese—is the site, in all probability, of the Arz Aesulana, 
where, Livy tells us, a garrison was placed when Hannibal 
threatened Rome in 210 B.c. In this account it is coupled 
with the Alban Mount: and Horace mentions it and 
Tibur and Tusculum as prominent points in the view of 
the hills from Rome. In Pliny’s day it had perished 
without leaving a trace: but twenty-five years after his 
death in the eruption of a.p. 79 a contractor who had 
successfully bored a tunnel under the mountain for the 
Aqua Claudia restored the ruined temple of the Bona 
Dea on its summit. | 

A road ascending the mountain, and remains of (possibly) 
pre-Roman platforms and of Roman reservoirs, may be 
Seen near the top, and while the ruins on the summit 
belong to a church of S. Angelo with a monastery men- 
tioned in the first half of the ninth century, there are 
blocks of tufa, columns, and other fragments of marble, 
with brick-stamps of the time of Hadrian, which probably 
belong to the temple. 

An extremely interesting letter of the humanist Flavio 
Biondo has recently come to light, describing an expedi- 
tion which Pope Pius II made to the summit of the 
mountain in September 1461.1 


1 Boll. di Tivoli, i. (1919) 128. 


122 


IT 


THE ROADS LEADING TO 
THE ALBAN HILLS 
AND THE SOUTH-EAST 


Vil. 


THE VIA PRAENESTINA 
THE VIA COLLATINA 
THE VIA LABICANA 
THE VIA LATINA 


THE VIA APPIA (WITH THE 
VIA ANTIATINA) 


ma 


PRELIMINARY NOTE 


Rome into South Italy, as will be clear to anyone 

who sees them from the S.E. side of the city. 
They occupy the space between the sea and the Apen- 
nines with their outliers, all of which are of limestone, and 
therefore were above the level of the sea of the pre-volcanic 
period, which washed their lower slopes before the various 
phases of submarine volcanic activity ended in the eleva- 
tion of the coast plain and the formation of numerous 
sub-aerial craters. 

The original Alban volcano was some 12 miles in diameter 
at the base, while the crater was about half as much 
across; and the late Sir Archibald Geikie, in his book 
on Landscape in History, has explained how, in his view, 
the later cone was built up in the middle of the larger 
crater, itself enclosing a well-marked crater with the Campo 
di Annibale at the bottom. This central crater then became 
choked, and the volcanic forces, not yet at rest, had to 
find other outlets; the original crater rim, which is pre- 
served from Tusculum to Nemi, was blown away on the 
W., and the craters of Albano and Nemi were the result : 
and still later on smaller craters were produced. Such 
portents as Livy records, when it. rained stones in the 
Alban Hills, are due to these sporadic manifestations of 
voleanic activity: while the rain of blood, which he also 
records, is due to an entirely different cause—the charging 
of the atmosphere with red sand from the Sahara when a 
violent sirocco is blowing, and its precipitation by rain 
in the form of red mud—a phenomenon which I have 
myself seen. 


Te ALBAN HILLS are the key to any advance from 


125 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


So far as we know, the earliest appearance of man in 
the Alban Hills dates from the Iron Age, as indeed in 
Rome itself: and it may have been the continuance of 
volcanic activity which rendered them not comfortable 
for habitation at any earlier period. According to tradi- 
tion, Alba Longa was founded some three hundred years 
before Rome by Ascanius or Iulus, the son of Aeneas ; 
but we do not find this interval between the earliest tombs 
of the Alban Hills and those of the recently discovered 
cemetery in the Forum, and it is therefore doubtful whether 
we can accept this tradition—any more than we can 
accept as historical the records of the wars between the 
two cities. We only know that there was a Confederacy 
of thirty communities, of which Alba was the head (though 
the list as handed down to us has some curious omissions), 
which met for sacrifices at the temple of Jupiter Latiaris, 
and that, on the fall of Alba Longa, Rome succeeded to the 
honorary presidency of it. 

The routes by which the Alban Hills were approached 
from Rome in early days were probably (1) the road to 
Tusculum, followed for some distance by the later Via 
Labicana, leading to the northern slopes and the rim of 
the outer crater, (2) the road to Castrimoenium (Marino), 
leading to the central portion of the group, (8) the road 
to Satricum, leading to the S. slopes. Besides these, 
it is possible—though not certain—that there was an 
earlier road running more or less in the same direction 
as the later Via Appia, to the W. side of the Alban 
Lake: and this is one of the points that one might hope 
to test by aerial photography. For both the Via Latina 
and the Via Appia, which run in an absolutely straight 
line for miles, are not natural nor primitive roads, but 
artificial military highways of a comparatively late date. 

The Via Latina was. probably the earlier, though its 
date is not recorded; for it led to the pass of Algidus, 
upon which determined attacks were made by the Aequi 
and Volsci in joint operations from 465 to 389 B.c. (to 
adopt the traditional dating), and was probably constructed 
at least thus far not very long after the latter year—while 
126 


: 


| 
| 


PRELIMINARY NOTE 


the foundation of Cales, near Capua, as a colony in 384 B.c. 
would tend to make us believe that the road had been 
pushed forward to that point at least as early as that date. 
The Via Appia, we know, was constructed some twenty 
years later, while we are without information as to the 
construction of the Via Labicana and the Via Praenestina, 
the former of which served the N. slopes of the Alban 
Hills, as well as the undulating country between them and 
the limestone mountains on a projecting spur of which 
Praeneste stood, guarding one of the routes to the S.E. ; for 
the Via Labicana, on its way to join the Via Latina, passes 
within a few miles of the town. The district between 
Praeneste and Tibur is furrowed by deep ravines ; but, the 
level of the hills between them being generally the same, 
they very often do not appear until one is close upon them. 
They presented great difficulties to the passage of the 
aqueducts by which the city of Rome was supplied, and 
‘some of the finest remains of these are to be found there. 

On the N. and W. sides of the Alban Hills the country 
is much easier, and the undulations are comparatively 
gentle. The lower slopes are covered with the remains 
of ancient villas; these are most plentiful in the lower 
part of the territory of Tusculum, and in that of Castri- 
moenium, in the neighbourhood of the modern Frascati, 
Castel Gandolfo, and Marino, and even nearer to Rome: 
though there are also many below Albano. As we approach 
the coast plain they become rarer, as we shall see in the 
sequel. 


127 


IV 


THE VIA PRAENESTINA 


began from the Porta Esquilina of the Servian wall, 

and from it the distances along them are calculated : 
but they did not bifurcate until about three-quarters of 
a mile further on, at the tomb of Eurysaces the baker, 
which stood in the fork. This monument belongs to the 
last century of the Republic: and in a.p. 52 Claudius 
built the splendid double arch (now called the Porta 
Maggiore) which carried the channels of the Aqua Claudia 
and the Anio Novus over the two roads just before they 
separated—so close to the tomb that when Honorius 
enlarged the Porta Praenestina (for Aurelian had incor- 
porated the arch into the line of his walls as a city gate) 


Te VIA PRAENESTINA and the Via Labicana both 


he was able to use the tomb as the foundation of a tower, — 


which was only removed in 1838. 

As it was the highest point on the E. side of the city, 
it was selected by the engineers of the aqueducts from 
the upper valley of the Anio and from the Alban Hills as 
the point at which the channels should enter the city, so 
that as little pressure as possible was lost. It was thus 
the meeting-point of eight or nine aqueducts and as many 
roads, and therefore, as Lanciani has pointed out, one 
of the most important topographical centres of the 
ancient city. 

But neither of the two roads with which we have to deal 
ever acquired first-class importance. 

As its original name, Via Gabina, implies, the left-hand 
road, later the Via Praenestina, once only led as far as 
Gabii; while the Via Labicana, I think, was the earliest 
route from Rome to Tusculum, and was later prolonged 
128 


THE VIA PRAENESTINA 


to Labici, but never became a road of first-class importance. 
It may, however, have superseded the Via Latina as a 
route for long-distance traffic, as the distance to their 
junction on the further side of the Alban Hills is practically 
the same along either, whereas its summit level is con- 
siderably (650 feet) lower than that of the Via Latina at 
the pass of Algidus. As regards the Via Appia, the journey 
by the Via Labicana is only 6 miles longer to their point 
of junction just before Casilinum, on the nearer bank of 
the Volturnus, or 3 miles shorter, if we take a more direct 
route by Teanum instead of going round by Venafrum : 
while the troublesome journey by boat through the Pomp- 
tine Marshes, so vividly described by Horace, would have 
been avoided. But we are not told that the Via Labicana 
was much in use during the period preceding the improve- 
ments which Trajan made on the Via Appia; and these 
must certainly have led to a definite preference being 
given to the latter. 

The growth of Rome has led to the obliteration of 
all traces of antiquity on the first portion of both roads. 
_ Taking the Via Praenestina first, we may note the exist- 
ence, about a mile from the gate on the left, of the largest 
_ tomb in the suburbs of Rome, a huge, low drum of con- 
crete about 150 feet in diameter (not reckoning the stone 
facing, which has disappeared), with a surprisingly small 
chamber (only 14 by 16 feet) in the centre reached by a 
long passage from the N., on the side—that is, away from 
the road. 

It belonged until lately to the Dominican Order; and 
a Frenchman placed a tablet here in 1716 (“‘ Bastile je 
m’apelle F(rér)e Dominique Brulon | M’a posté sur ce 
tourion pour faire santinelle”’), while in 1741 the Irish 
Dominicans put up another to commemorate Prince 
Charlie’s visit on September 2nd. 

A mile further on we cross a stream, and then the so- 
called military road, built to connect the circle of forts 
constructed round Rome in 1883. On the right is a well- 
preserved tomb in ornamental brickwork of the second 
century A.D., which, as Rivoira pointed out, provides us 

I 129 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


with the earliest example known of small arches supported 
on brackets and themselves carrying a cornice. Another, 
close by, has a niche with an elegant scallop-shell pattern 
in stucco. Ascending the hill, we find extensive remains 
of ancient villas on both sides of the road. On the right 
there are scanty remains of various periods from the 
beginning of the Empire to the fourth century a.p., when 
various smaller buildings were united into one group, 
which was not a residence de luwe, but probably a farm- 
house. The only ruin of any importance which is now 
preserved is a large reservoir in two stories, each of them 
containing six chambers, measuring 28 by 17 feet each ; 
but the lower chambers were not lined with hydraulic 
cement, and only served to support the upper. The 
exterior is 71 feet square, but as it stands on uneven 
ground it has been heavily buttressed at the lower end. 

On the left, the first remains we find belong to a villa 
of the Republican period, with an extensive system of 
passages lined with cement for drawing the surface water, 
but they have been much damaged by modern quarrying. 
We then come to a large reservoir with buttresses, of the 
middle of the second century : and then to the remains of 
a large octagonal hall, upon which in the Middle Ages a 
lofty tower was planted, giving it a most fantastic appear- 
ance. The octagon above the niches with which it was 
decorated (in one of them Pirro Ligorio saw and drew 
nearly four hundred years ago some decorations in stucco 
which are still fairly well preserved) gave place to a cir- 
cular dome: and the use of empty jars in the vaulting 
to lighten the weight shows that we are in the middle of 
the third century (Fig. 11). Not far off is an apse with 
a semi-dome also stuccoed, with the vault in the form of 
a scallop-shell, which is probably a century earlier. 

Piranesi, who gives plates of both these buildings in 
his Antichita Romana, believed them to be tombs: but 
the first is probably a nymphaeum, while the second may 
have formed part of a set of baths. 

But the most important monument of all is . that which 
gives its modern name to the site, the Tor de’ Schiavi. 
130 


12, TEMPLE AT GABII (p. 134). 


II. REMAINS OF VILLA OF THE GORDIANI (p. 130). 


To face p, 130, 


r] 


~ 


THE VIA PRAENESTINA 


This dates only from 1571, when one Vincenzo Rossi dello 
Schiavo was proprietor of the farm, which previously to 
that was known as the M onumentum, from this ruin or 
from the lofty tower described above. It is a large 
circular temple tomb, like the Heroon of Romulus, son of 
Maxentius, on the Via Appia, and belongs, as the brick- 
_ Stamps showed (they have unfortunately all been covered 
up or removed in the course of recent repairs to the struc- 
ture), to the time of Diocletian. The exterior was decorated 
in stucco in imitation of marble blocks, as were his great 
baths. In front was a portico with columns, approached 
by a flight of steps. The lower story, which is underground, 
has a large pillar in the centre, which carries the circular 
vault. The lighting was by lunette windows in the attic 
just below the dome. Here all topographers have placed 
the villa of the Gordiani, and though their biographer 
only tells us that it was on this road, and that it had two 
hundred columns in a square peristyle, three basilicas with 
a hundred columns each, and most magnificent thermae, 
we must also place it here, for we shall find no other remains 
of sufficient magnificence. Also we must remember that, 
while they reigned in 288, they were descended from the 
Gracchi on the father’s side, and from Trajan on the 
mother’s, and that their ancestors had frequently held 
the consulship. It is therefore not surprising, as it would 
seem, that only the octagonal hall belongs to the actual 
period of their reign, and that the rest of the buildings are 
either earlier or later. It is unlikely that the villa origin- 
ally extended across the road, for the belt of tombs on 
each side would have been a great inconvenience : though 
when under Constantine the Imperial domain included the 
villa known as ad duas lauros on the Via Labicana, it is 
most likely that it formed an uninterrupted belt of terri- 
tory as far as Tor de’ Schiavi. In any case, the latter 
villa must have occupied the whole hill-top as far as the 
next stream. 

In the valley, just at the fourth kilometre, the modern 
Via Collatina diverges to the left. Tombs continue to 
be visible on each side of the Via Praenestina, which keeps 

131 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


on a fairly straight course, despite the undulations of the 
ground. After a couple of miles we reach the Torre di 
Tre Teste, a mediaeval tower and farmhouse on the N. 
edge of the road, which takes its name from a much-damaged 
relief from a tomb, with three heads representing those who 
were buried in it, which is built into the chapel. 

A mile further on again, on the left, are some ruins of a 
villa (called Muraccio dell’ Uomo Morto, from a late burial 
found there) and of its subterranean water cisterns: the 
springs which supplied it are by some identified with those 
of the Aqua Appia, but this is very doubtful. 

A mile further on again we see the picturesque Tor 
Angela on the right, and near it some brick arches of 
the Aqua Alexandrina. This ran between the Via Prae- 
nestina and the Via Labicana, and an ancient road existed 
for its service, the pavement of which I saw twenty years 
ago; but it has now been used to make up the bed of a 
modern farm road. Ruins of various buildings are to be 
seen on each side of the road, and much has been brought 
to light, and simultaneously destroyed, by the spread of 
cultivation. 

Just beyond the twelfth kilometre-stone we reach the 
eighth milestone of Innocent XIII (1721-1724), which 
corresponds more or less with the ninth ancient mile : 
and hence it is that the fine bridge (Fig. 13) over 
the little stream here is called Pons de Nona—a name 
which can be traced as far back as a.pD. 958. There was 
originally a small single-arched bridge incorporated in 
the far loftier structure which was later on substituted for 
it, to avoid the steep descent and ascent. Its total length 
is about 236 feet by 33 feet wide at the top (the paved 
roadway now removed measured 20 feet in width) and the 
greatest height 52. There are seven arches of hewn 
Gabine stone, but the bridge-heads are of red tufa quarried 
on the spot. It is by far the finest road bridge in the 
neighbourhood of Rome. 

On the hill just beyond the bridge, ploughing brought 
to light some twenty-five years ago a large deposit of votive 
objects in terra-cotta, representing almost all parts of the 
132 


13. PONTE DI NONA (p. 132). 


I4. OSA STREAM AND ALBAN HILLS (p. 133). 


TOwMaces pe 132: 


THE VIA PRAENESTINA 


human body (though not of the internal organs), mostly 
life-size, with some small figures of cows and horses, which 
betokened the presence of some temple. Excavations 
were carried on ten years later, and brought to light a 
number of Republican coins. These show that the sanc- 
tuary existed from about 300 B.c. to the birth of Christ. 
Of the temple itself no remains came to light; but a 
rectangular enclosure walled in hewn stone was found, 
and just outside it were two cavities in the rock, full 
of votive objects. On the other hand, a small bath was 
found which may have served for the use of wayfarers. 
How it got its water is uncertain: there is a cave with a 
small magnesiac spring below, which may have served 
to supply it, and may also have been the original cause of 
the establishment of the sanctuary here. Beyond it is a 
large group of tombs in opus quadratum, which lay on 
each side of the ancient road, the course of which was 
slightly to the N. of the modern, so that they are all on 
the left of the latter. They extended for a couple of 
miles with occasional interruptions, and behind them were 
other buildings at large intervals; but the spread of 
cultivation will soon leave but scanty traces of them, for 
on the S., where there is more pasture-land, the remains 
are scantier. A branch road ran off at about the tenth 
ancient mile to the Via Collatina; and at the eleventh 
we reach the Osteria dell’ Osa, an important meeting- 
point of roads. The ancient Via Praenestina went on in 
an easterly direction, whereas the modern road, which also 
follows an ancient line, turns N.E. to Le Capannelle. 
Then there are two roads from Lunghezza, one on each 
bank of the Osa stream, diverging to the left, and two 
roads going to the Via Labicana diverging to the right, 
one leaving it a little beyond the eighth mile, and another 
a little after the tenth, the latter forming part of an im- 
portant cross-road from the Via Appia to the various 
roads to the N.E. of it (the Via Cavona.) 

The Via Praenestina crossed the Osa stream (Fig. 14) 
a little to the S. of the modern bridge, and its pavement 


may soon be seen in the track which keeps to the S. of 
133 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


the long extinct crater, on the S. and E. edges of which 
are the remains of the once famous city of Gabii. There 
was a lake here in the Middle Ages, but it is mentioned 
by no classical author ; and we are told that in the excava- 
tion of a new outlet channel in 1838 (by which it is still 
drained) traces of the ancient one were discovered. It is 
indeed improbable that it would have been allowed to 
exist by the Romans, for it would easily have become 
swampy. ‘The road soon passes below the famous temple 
(Fig. 12), a structure of about 200 B.c. _It is constructed 
of blocks 2 feet in height and thickness, but varying in 
length, of the local stone (which was extensively used in 
Roman times, and is now called sperone), which were 
originally coated with stucco, so as to give the appearance 
of white marble: but they are now of a beautiful brown 
colour. The cella is well preserved to a height of about 
28 fect above the podium; it is 44 feet long and 28 feet 
wide inside, and had six columns in front and at the sides 
(reckoning the corner columns twice over), but none at 
the back. It stands on the S. edge of the lake, and may 
be distinguished from the Alban Hills by those who 
know where to look; though an even more prominent 
object is the lofty mediaeval Torre di Castiglione on 
the E. bank, which probably marks the site of the 
acropolis. 

To what divinity the temple was dedicated is uncer- 
tain: Vergil speaks of the arva Gabinae Junonis, and it 
has generally been attributed to Juno, though others 
prefer to call it the temple of Apollo, which, Livy tells 
us, was struck by lightning in 176 B.c. Speculation on 
this point has, however, only been open since the site of 
Gabii was definitely settled, when excavations were made 
around the temple in 1792 under the direction of Gavin 
Hamilton, and it was found to have been surrounded on 
three sides by Doric colonnades. The Forum was also 
brought to light, but no traces of it remain visible, and 
indeed it had been already filled up when Maria Graham 
(better known as Lady Callcott, the authoress of Little 
Arthur’s History of England) passed that way in 1819 with 
134 


15. VIA PRAENESTINA (p. 136), 


16. HUTS AT GABII (p. 135). 


To face p. 135, 


THE VIA PRAENESTINA 


Charles Eastlake and his wife, on her way to spend the 
summer with them at Poli. 

A large number of inscriptions and statues were found, 
and the former are of especial interest, showing definitely 
that this was the site of Gabii: for before this, though 
it was clearly enough indicated both by the itineraries 
and by our ancient authorities as situated about 12} miles 
from Rome and 11 from Praeneste, it had been not infre- 
quently misplaced. Flavio Biondo put it at Gallicano, 
and so did several sixteenth-century writers; while 
others, and notably Pirro Ligorio, preferred Zagarolo. 
Fabretti, the explorer of the aqueducts, had, as usual, 
seen the truth. The town owed much of its then pros- 
perity to Hadrian, in whose honour the Curia, or council 
chamber, received the name of Aelia Augusta; though 
from the time of Augustus, or at any rate Tiberius, to 
that of Elagabalus, the inscriptions give us definite 
evidence that it was a municipality, and the Forum was 
adorned with portrait statues of numerous members of 
the Imperial House, and other works of art as well. 

The language of the inscriptions is, of course, that of 
flattery: and in estimating the real importance and 
prosperity of this roadside village we should strike a mean 
between it and the equally excessive stress which Cicero 
and the poets lay upon its desolation—Horace speaks 
of a God-forsaken village as Gabiis desertior atque Fidenis 
vicus; and Juvenal, as his manner is, finds it useful to 
point a moral, in two passages imitating Horace, in asso- 
ciating it with Fidenae, while in the third he speaks of 
‘‘ simple Gabii.”” But all this part of the site of the later 
town very likely did not fall within the compass of the 
ancient city at all. The Gabii which is so prominent in 
the earliest history of Rome lay on the E. bank of the 
lake, where the crater rim is a good deal higher, and was 
protected by cliffs, the defensive properties of which were 
increased by scarping and quarrying (Fig. 16). The huts 
which may be seen at the foot of them, which are inhabited 
by peasant labourers from the hills, may give an image 
of those in which the primitive population must have 

185 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


dwelt. A remarkable rock-cut causeway leads right 
through the ancient city, of which no traces are to be 
seen—for the piece of wall near the tower is probably 
mediaeval, and other certain traces of fortification are 
scanty—while at the tower itself there is nothing but 
the tombstone of a certain Sextus Cloulius who lived here 
to the ripe old age of ninety-five. 7 

We may now return to the Via Praenestina; on the 
left we find the scanty remains of the church of S. Primi- 
tivus, the apse of which belonged to an earlier building, 
while on the right a branch road, the pavement of which 
can still be seen, runs off southward to the springs of 
the Aqua Alexandrina. Shortly after another road, 
also ancient, marked in the maps of the seventeenth 
century, runs off to Passerano. A little further on, to the 
right, I saw lying loose in a field a round drum of traver- 
tine, which proved to bear an inscription showing it to 
be the thirteenth milestone of the road: and it would 
seem to be mentioned as a landmark in documents of 
the eleventh and twelfth centuries in the archives of the 
church of S. Prassede, which owned considerable property 
hereabouts. Here we may see the scanty remains of an 
aqueduct—which has, however, a certain interest, as it 
must be the very one which, as an inscription records, 
Hadrian constructed for the benefit of Gabi. The pave- 
ment of the road, which is only used as a bridle-path, 
is in fine preservation, and its width is 13 or 14 feet. A 
branch road soon diverged due southward to the Via 
Labicana; and after another mile we come to a fairly 
well-preserved ancient single-arched bridge, the so-called 
Ponte di Terra. The pavement continues for the next 
2 or 8 miles (Fig. 15) almost as far as the point where 
the road comes into use once more; and several ancient 
branch roads go off from it, though none of them can be 
followed very far. 

Remains of the aqueducts now begin to come in sight 
to the S.—two great bridges of the Aqua Claudia and 
Anio Novus, so close together that they might easily be 
taken for one, much restored in later concrete and over- 
136 


17. CORCOLLE (p. 137). 


18. PASSERANO (p. 137). 


To face p 137. 


THE VIA PRAENESTINA 


grown with bushes; and a little before the eighteenth 
ancient mile, at the Osteria di Cavamonte, we reach the 
modern road from Tivoli by Ponte Lucano to Zagarolo 
and the Via Labicana, which at the Osteria delle Capannelle, 
some way to the N., is joined by the modern road to Poli. 
We have now come to a district of long, narrow, flat- 
topped ridges, separated by deep ravines, which—as the 
level of the hill-top is more or less uniform—are hardly 
suspected until one is close upon them. The picturesque 
sites of Corcolle (Fig. 17) and Passerano (Fig. 18), which 
lie between us and the Osteria delle Capannelle, may both 
occupy those of ancient villages, and have often been 
identified with Querquetula and Scaptia respectively, 
though the evidence is in neither case sufficient. Pas- 
serano, at least, if not Corcolle, became the site of a Roman 
villa, and both were used for mediaeval castles. As to 
Pedum, which seems to have been of rather more impor- 
tance—for, though it is mentioned, like the other two, 
among Pliny’s catalogue of the lost cities of Latium, yet 
the name clung to the district; and both Caesar and 
Tibullus had villas in regione Pedana, as we learn from 
Cicero and from Horace respectively—it may have been 
at Zagarolo, a couple of miles to the S., or it may have 
been at Gallicano. 

Our road, on the other hand, traverses a deep 
cutting in the rock (the Cavamonte) through a narrow 
ridge; and on each side of it we may see the inspection 
shafts, now blocked up, by which it was possible to descend 
to the aqueduct channels below. These emerge after 
the cutting, and the bridge which carried them across 
the next stream is used for the modern road, which goes 
on to Gallicano and thence to Poli,! whereas the ancient 


1 By it we reach, as the ravines become deeper and wider, and 
present even more formidable obstacles to their passage, the finest 
remains of the great aqueducts ; but to deal with them adequately 
would require a volume. Suffice it to say that I hope shortly to 
publish a comprehensive work on them, and that in the meantime 
details may be found in the sources cited in the Bibliography. A 
specimen view of one of the most picturesque bridges—the Ponte 
S. Antonio (Fig. 19), which lies not far from Gericomio, may be 


given here. 
137 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


bridge of the Via Praenestina, the so-called Ponte Amato, 
is only used for foot traffic. It is a remarkably perfect 
specimen of a Roman road bridge (Fig. 20), and is built 
of massive blocks of volcanic stone; the roadway is 
19 feet in width, the parapets on each side being 2 feet 
wide. The road then ascends to the summit of a long 
ridge, passing close under the large modern villa of S. 
Pastore, the summer quarters of the German College in 
Rome, and follows it, ascending gradually, until it fades 
into the low ground below Palestrina, the ancient Prae- 
_neste. It then runs absolutely straight for over 4 miles, 
and, being followed by the modern road, there is little of 
interest to record except some remains of pavement at 
intervals and two or three prominent tombs. The hills 
further away from the road on each side are now entirely 
covered with vineyards; but in ancient times, notwith- 
standing the difficulties of communication caused by the 
deep ravines, there was a fair sprinkling of ancient build- 
ings—both of the villas of the wealthy and of the dwellings 
of the cultivators. As we approach Palestrina, we may 
notice several fine villas; one just before reaching the 
Ponte Sardone (an ancient road embankment much 
repaired), on the left, with a cryptoporticus, the decora- 
tions of which (paintings on a white ground, with decora- 
tive borders surrounding panels) are still well preserved ; 
while a good deal higher up, near the church of 5. Fran- 
cesco, are two open reservoirs, one a very large one known 
as La Pescara. 

To the S., at the cemetery, which lies on the top of 
its platform, is a very large villa, which is by many 
attributed to Hadrian, to whose time it belongs, and in 
which Gavin Hamilton found the so-called Braschi Anti- 
nous, a colossal statue representing him as Dionysus: 
it is now in the Rotunda of the Vatican Museum. Imme- 
diately to the E., on the Cave road, there is another, the 
attribution of which is uncertain. Certainly the district 
was in considerable favour as a summer resort: Augustus 
had a villa here (whether it was in it or elsewhere that 
Horace read Homer, we do not know), and Tiberius 
138 , 


19. PONTE S, ANTONIO (p. 137). 


20, PONTE AMATO (p. 138). 


To face p. 138. 


a wee 4 


oi 
re 


f 


21. CASTEL S. PIETRO (p. 139). 


22. QUARRIES, CERVARA (p. 143) 


To face’ p, 139. 


THE VIA PRAENESTINA 


recovered from an illness here; the Younger Pliny had 
a villa here, and so had Marcus Aurelius. 

But this is not the chief title of Praeneste to fame. 
In early times it was chiefly celebrated as a stronghold ; 
and from its citadel, now Castel San Pietro (Fig. 21) on 
a limestone rock high above the modern town, defended 
by massive Cyclopean walls of large limestone blocks, 
two long walls descended and enclosed a roughly triangular 
space between them. The wealth of the rulers of this 
city is shown by the magnificence of the tombs of the 
seventh century B.c. which have been found in the lower 
ground below the town. Such tombs as the Barberini 
and the Bernardini, the contents of which are to be seen 
in the museums of the Villa di Papa Giulio and the Collegio 
Romano in Rome, show that these princes acquired their 
artistic treasures, with their strong Oriental characteristics 
(some are actually of Eastern origin and some of local 
workmanship), if not from Etruria itself, at any rate 
from the same sources as those which supplied the lords 
of Caere in Southern Etruria; while the bronze toilet 
chests, the so-called cistae, of the fourth and third cen- 
turies B.c., reveal an important renaissance of art in the 
beauty of their engravings. 

Its commanding position close to the route to the 
S. through the valley of the Sacco gave it great impor- 
tance, and it was one of the very few cities of the old Latin 
Confederacy which still survived in a flourishing condition 
until the later Republic: and it had received the full 
franchise in 90 B.c., when eight years later, after success- 
fully standing a severe siege from Sulla, it surrendered 
when the Younger Marius was finally defeated at the Porta 
Collina. Then it was destroyed, and its territory con- 
fiscated and divided among the soldiers of Sulla; and 
the site of the old town was entirely given up to the huge 
terraces of the temple of Fortuna, in which she was wor- 
shipped as Primigenia, the first-born of Jupiter. Her 
responses to those who consulted the oracle were given 
by “lots * or slips of wood on which letters were carved. 
Sulla restored the temple with greatly increased magni- 

‘139 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES — 


ficence, the forum of the new colony occupying the lower 
ground at the foot of the hill-side where the old necropolis 
had been. Before his time there was no attempt at 
symmetry in the planning of the town. He found it 
enclosed by the two long walls descending from the citadel, — 
and by a base wall on the S., which he destroyed, super- — 
seding it with a terrace wall of his own; the western part — 
of it is of massive blocks of squared stone (above this a — 
very large water-tank was added in Imperial times, to © 
correspond with the one already existing on the E., and 
below it at the corner of the wall is another, faced with 
brickwork and decorated with niches on the outside), 
and the eastern part has arcades, which are now used 
for stores, wheelwrights’ shops, etc., and give the name 
to the road (Via degli Arcioni) which runs along the foot 
of the town; while in the centre, between them, he made 
a monumental entrance to the temple, which is not very 
easy to discern among the later constructions by which 
it has been filled up. The entrance was placed on the 
axis of the cathedral, which occupies an ancient building 
(perhaps the old Curia, or council chamber), upon the front 
of which traces may still be seen of a sundial described 
by Varro. It lay upon the W. side of the older forum of 
the town, the site of which is partly occupied by the modern 
Piazza Regina Margherita, the main square of the little 
town: and on to it fronted the city treasury, a little 
vaulted chamber belonging, as an inscription shows, to 
a period before the time of Sulla. This lies directly 
under a large rectangular hall with an apsidal termina- 
tion, which fronted on to the forum, and is generally 
regarded as the temple of Fortuna. The Corinthian 
columns of its front, with their fine capitals, may be 
seen in the modern houses, but the entrance seems to have 
been from the side. The famous mosaic, with scenes upon 
the Nile, which is now in the Palazzo Barberini (with many 
other interesting objects of local antiquity), decorated 
the apse ; but the interior (now dark, owing to the closing 
of the windows on the S.) has some fine decoration still 
preserved. To the W. is an area now open, but once 
140 


THE VIA PRAENESTINA 


probably roofed over, and resembling a basilica in plan, 
which served as a means of communication between 
the temple and a cave in the rock, which was probably 
the grotto of the oracle. A beautiful coloured mosaic 
pavement has been found there and left in position ; it 
is not as complete as the other and represents various 
fish swimming in the sea. Before the time of Sulla the 
approaches to the temple were on the KE. and W., on a 
level with the ancient forum and with the main portion 
of the temple, by one gate in each of the long walls; 
while the modern Porta del Sole, at the S.E. corner of 
the town, which one enters from the electric railway 
station, was probably only a postern. 

In the upper part of the town the remains consist 
mainly of terrace walls running right across it from KE. 
to W.; and they have naturally had a large part in fixing 
the position of the streets and houses of the picturesque 
mediaeval town, which makes great use of them as it 
climbs steeply up the hill-side. At the top there was a 
large open space surrounded by a colonnade, with a 
hemicycle, the steps of which still exist, leading up to 
a circular temple, the back wall of which still exists, in a 
corridor of the Palazzo Barberini. 

The resemblance to the temple of Heracles at Tibur 
must have been close: but here we are a good deal higher 
up, and the view is finer and a good deal wilder: for 
beyond the vineyard-clad plain, furrowed by deep ravines, 
we see the E. side of the Alban Hills, and to the left the 
limestone Volscian mountains, with Artena and Segni 
lying high up, in positions of great natural strength, 
rendered even more formidable by massive walls. Truly 
it must have been an imposing sanctuary from many miles 
away : and those who wish to form some idea of its magni- 
ficence, and at the same time learn more of its history, 
should glance at Mr. Bradshaw’s admirable restoration, 
which gives us a fine conception of the appearance of this 
great sanctuary extending over the whole hill-side. 

From Praeneste there are two or three different roads 
southward, which join the Via Labicana at different 

141 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


points, which may be more fittingly dealt with in connexion 
with it; while another must have run on eastward to a 
point a little S. of Genazzano, where it was intersected by 
a road from the upper Anio valley. This would take us 
into interesting and fascinating country, but too far into 
the mountains, away from the Roman Campagna in the 
narrower sense. 


142 


IVa 


THE VIA COLLATINA 


Collatina diverged from the Via Tiburtina to the 

right just beyond the Arch of the Aqua Marcia, 
which was converted into the Porta Tiburtina of the 
Aurelian wall. It was a short and unimportant country 
road, mainly used for the service of the aqueducts and 
the quarries: but it must have been, as we have already 
pointed out, one of the earliest elements in the Roman 
road system ; and it was one of the primitive roads which 
was never converted into a great highway. 

The first part of the road was marked until a few years 
ago by a lane called the Via Malabarba, a corruption of 
Mola Barbara, which occurs in a document of the year 
981; but it has now been completely obliterated by the 
construction of a new goods-yard and engine-sheds; and 
the line of the old road (though some scanty traces of it 
may still be seen below) only comes into use again 4 miles 
out of Rome, being reached by a short branch on the left 
from the Via Praenestina, a little beyond the Tor de’ 
Schiavi. It pursues a curiously sinuous course, continually 
crossing and recrossing the Aqua Virgo, a remarkably 
pure supply of water brought to Rome by Agrippa, the 
channel of which is still in use and supplies the lower 
part of the city of Rome with perhaps the best drinking 
water in the world. 

A mile or more to the N. of the road are the picturesque 
quarries of Cervara (Fig. 22), most of which have not 
been worked since Roman days: they are now overgrown 
with bushes, and the dark red tufa shows up warm against 
the green. Here, till Rome ceased to be a city small 

143 


I THE DAYS OF THE EMPIRE, at any rate, the Via 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


enough for such things, was celebrated from 1815 to 
1874 the famous artists’ carnival, beloved especially by 
German artists: but, like the Carnival itself, it has died 
a natural death. To reach these quarries we may turn 
off at the large farmhouse of Cervelletta, clustering round 
a lofty mediaeval tower, near the fifth mile of the ancient 
road, or the seventh kilometre of the modern, or at the 
smaller farm of La Rustica, a mile to the E., which occu- 
pies the site of a villa. Twenty years ago a fine black- 
and-white mosaic pavement lay under the mud of the 
farmyard, but all has now disappeared, except a system 
of passages cut in the rock for the storage of water. 

Three miles further on, in a low-lying valley, are the 
copious springs of the Aqua Virgo, now entirely enclosed 
to protect them from contamination. Frontinus, who 
was in charge of the water supply in the time of Trajan, 
and effected many much-needed improvements and reforms, 
tells us that the springs were situated within the pro- 
perty of Lucullus, so famous for his wealth and luxury 
in the last century of the Republic, which in the time of 
Trajan belonged to Ceionius Commodus, the adoptive 
son of Hadrian and father of Lucius Verus, the colleague 
of Marcus Aurelius. Through him it came to form part 
of the Imperial domain. Somewhere in this district, too, 
lay the springs of the Aqua Appia, constructed like the 
Via Appia by the blind censor of 312 B.c., whose name it 
bears, but they have never been identified. 

Half a mile to the N., beyond the railway, is the casale 
of Salone, which now contains what little is left of the 
villa of Cardinal Agostino Trivulzio of Milan, who bought 
the site from the chapter of S. Maria Maggiore in 1525; 
but it returned to them after his death. It was decorated 
with fountains, stuccoes, and frescoes, some of which 
represented the adventures of Phaethon and were the 
work of Giammaria da Milano and Daniele da Volterra: 
but only faint traces of them now remain. 

A mile further on the modern road turns sharply to 
the left, but the old road kept straight on and is marked 
by a cart-track: the cuttings made for it through the 
144 


23. LUNGHEZZA (p. 145). 


24. SETTE BASSI (p. 157). 


To face p. 145. 


THE VIA COLLATINA 


rock may still be seen, while a good deal of the pavement 
was found and removed in 1858; it was only 9 feet wide, 
which shows that the road was of minor importance. 
It passes through a cutting in a hill, between the sites of 
two Roman villas, and, after traversing some undulating 
country, reaches the S. extremity of the plateau on which 
the ancient Collatia once stood. Remains of buildings 
there are none; but the site is an admirable one for an 
ancient city, being protected on all sides by valleys (that 
on the S.E. may be artificial), except on the N.W., where 
a narrow neck of rock (now traversed by the railway 
cutting) connects it with the rock on which the large 
fortified farmhouse of Lunghezza now stands (Fig. 28), 
which is well defended by the River Anio and was no 
doubt the citadel. Here, then, was the site of Collatia, 
where, as the legend tells us, Sextus Tarquinius found the 
fair Lucretia spinning, surrounded by her maidens. 
Cicero and Strabo tell us that in their time it had lost 
all importance, the latter classing it with Antemnae, 
Fidenae, and Labici as a place that had once been a 
stronghold but was now a hamlet in private ownership. 
No doubt the large villa which, as elsewhere, occupied the 
fine site of the acropolis was destroyed when the Strozzi 
of Florence built the large fortified farmhouse which now 
occupies the site. 

From Lunghezza an ancient road appears to have run 
S. along each bank of the Osa stream; that on the E. 
bank passed near the ruined castle known as Castellaccio, 
where some authorities place Collatia, but, I think, wrongly. 
No road, on the other hand, crossed the river in ancient 
times: but one has quite recently been made to join the 
Via Tiburtina. 


K 145 


V 


THE VIA LABICANA 


we have already spoken, erected by Vespasian, 

was found 200 yards outside Porta Maggiore in 
1903. But the road presents no object of interest nowa- 
days from the tomb of Eurysaces to Torre Pignattara. 
This building, which stands close to the third mile of the 
ancient road (the milestone, erected by Maxentius, was 
found in 1687), acquired its name from the use of empty 
earthenware jars in the vaulting in order to decrease the 
weight. It was circular, with eight niches, and had a 
domed roof; and it was the mausoleum of Helena, the 
mother of Constantine, whose huge red porphyry sarco- 
phagus was removed from here to the Lateran by Pope 
Anastasius IV (in 1153-4), and only removed to the 
Vatican by Pius VI, who placed it opposite to the sarco- 
phagus of Constantia. Beneath the mausoleum are the 
catacombs of SS. Peter and Marcellinus: while above- 
ground was the cemetery of a cavalry corps which served 
as the Imperial bodyguard: they were known as the 
Equites Singulares. Many of them were recruited from 
Germany, Pannonia, Dacia, etc., though also from other 
provinces, and their barracks lay near the Lateran. The 
tomb stood within an Imperial domain known as ad 
duas lauros (no doubt from two fine bay-trees which grew 
in it), and which must have extended by the time of Con- 
stantine as far as the Via Praenestina. Valentinian II 
was murdered here by two of his officers in 455, and from 


Te FIRST MILESTONE of the Via Labicana,’ of which 


1 Its official name to-day is Via Casilina, because the Via Latina 
joined the Via Appia at Casilinum, the modern Capua, immediately 
before the bridge over the Volturnus. 


146 


THE VIA LABICANA 


313 to 649 the Imperial villa was the site of the titular 
church (under the name of Sub Augusta) of the see of 
Labici. Some remains of the villa and the buildings 
connected with it were to be seen on the right of the 
road a little further on before the establishment of the 
Centocelle flying-ground here; but now a certain amount 
has been destroyed, and the rest is not easily accessible. 
A number of statues were found here at the end of the 
eighteenth century, the best known of which is the Eros 
of Centocelle in the Vatican. The name of the locality 
(a hundred chambers) is doubtless a popular exaggera- 
tion which sprang up when the ruins were better pre- 
served than they are now. Descending to the stream, 
we find on the right a modern osteria, built into a curious 
circular structure with domed roof and niches; on a 
knoll behind it rises the lofty Torre di Centocelle, built 
of chips of volcanic stone and white marble, the latter 
testifying to the destruction of tombs (of which, indeed, 
numerous discoveries have been recorded), which must have 
been used for building material; and on the left we see 
the finest stretch of the brick arches of the Aqua Alexan- 
drina which is still in existence. Built by Alexander 
Severus, it made use of the same springs which Sixtus V 
afterwards brought to Rome by the Acqua Felice. Beyond 
this the spread of cultivation has led to the enclosure of 
much of what was previously pasture-land; and in any 
case there is little to be seen until we notice, just to the 
S. of the modern bridge over which the electric railway 
passes, a small but finely preserved single-arched bridge 
of the ancient road which served to carry the traffic 
until its narrowness led to its abandonment only a few 
years ago. A few hundred yards further is the large farm- 
house of Torre Nuova, surrounded by a prominent grove 
of pines, which forms an oasis in the desert. It belongs 
to the Borghese family : and in an ancient villa within the 
confines of the farm attached to it was found, in 1884, 
the large mosaic of gladiators fighting with wild beasts 
which adorns the large hall on the ground-floor of the 
Villa Borghese. In this district was situated the territory 

147 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


of the Pupinian tribe, one of the sixteen country tribes ; 
here Hannibal encamped after leaving Gabii in his 
advance on Rome in 211 B.c., and here, despite the 
proverbial sterility of the district, Atilius Regulus and 
Fabius Maximus had their farms. 

From this point the ancient road pursues a course 
entirely distinct from that of the modern, and, though 
they are never very far apart, and, indeed, come within 
35 yards of one another at one point, they separate again, 
and do not rejoin until the mediaeval castle of Piombinara 
is reached, about 31 miles from Rome. The modern 
road, called the Via Casilina, which is now followed 
almost as far as Zagarolo railway station by the electric 
railway to Fiuggi (after which it follows the Palestrina 
road), passes through a district which has until lately been 
desolate and given up to pasture, though it is rapidly 
coming under cultivation: but it was fairly thickly 
populated in Roman times, and the road very likely 
follows an ancient line. 

The ancient road, on the other hand, though remains 
of it are fairly abundant, requires careful tracing: and, 
indeed, it was not really known until Rosa rediscovered 
its line in 1856. It is not remarkable for its straightness : 
the country is not very difficult, and the builders of the 
road seem to have taken it as they found it, without 
attempting to alter its line from the natural course. 

I am, indeed, inclined to suppose that it was the original 
route to Tusculum: for at the site of the ninth ancient 
milestone (about 2 miles from Torre Nuova) there is 
another ancient road continuing the previous line of the 
Via Labicana in a south-easterly direction. Beyond this 
it can be traced on the E. bank of the (now dried) volcanic 
crater lake of Pantano Secco!1—the most probable of the 
seven candidates for identification with the Lake Regillus, 
where was fought the famous battle in which the great 
Twin Brethren helped the Romans on to defeat the Tar- 
quins and their ally, the Prince of Tusculum. Thence 
it went on up, passing close to the Villa Borghese and the 

1 This lies just S. of C. Marchese on the map. . 
148 


THE VIA LABICANA 


Villa Mondragone, to the amphitheatre of Tusculum. 
This is the natural prolongation of the line we have so far 
been following: and we have seen that such prolongations 
have already occurred in the case of other roads. On any 
other supposition, indeed, the sudden sharp turn which 
the Via Labicana makes from S.E. to E. is very hard to 
account for, as it might quite easily have been avoided 
and distance thereby saved, inasmuch as the country 
presents no natural difficulties. 

For the next couple of miles the boundary of the terri- 
tory of the Commune of Rome (the Agro Romano) coincides 
with the road—a significant fact. In this stretch it 
intersects the important cross-road from the Via Appia, 
the so-called Via Cavona, of which we have spoken already, 
and to which we shall return, and at the same time it 
crosses the subterranean aqueduct channel of the Anio 
Vetus ; the yellow or white calcareous deposit of this and 
of the other aqueducts shows up strongly against the dark 
brown volcanic soil of the district, and has made it possible 
for us to trace the course of the aqueducts through the 
whole of this region, which had not previously been 
possible. There are, indeed, more considerable remains 
than had previously been suspected, but they require a 
good deal of finding. Thus, on the W. side of the extinct 
crater of Prata Porci (which is one of the unsuccessful 
claimants to be identified with the Lake Regillus) the 
rock-cut channel of the Aqua Claudia is occupied by a 
stream for a short distance: while the deep, narrow ravine 
which traverses the middle of this crater contains the 
two bridges of this aqueduct and of the Anio Novus, 
running side by side, though, the arches having collapsed 
in both cases, only the bridge-heads remain, and are not 
at first sight easily recognisable. And if the existence of 
these bridges were not enough to render it impossible that 
it was a lake in historic times, we may note the discovery 
of a magnificent villa of the first half of the second century 
A.D., with lead pipes bearing the names of two men of 
consular rank. 

The Via Labicana kept outside the crater to the N., 

149 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


and then ascended into ground which is now heavily 
cultivated and mostly as vineyards: so that remains of 
it, and of various ancient buildings (tombs, villas, etc.) 
adjacent to it, have been discovered, but soon afterwards 
destroyed. The road continues to ascend, and shortly 
after the ancient thirteenth milestone we have the same 
phenomenon as at the ninth, of one road going straight 
on in a southerly direction, while the other turns E.: and 
here, too, the explanation is that the straight road led 
to Labici, another of the lost cities of Latium, which is 
to be identified with the high-lying village of Monte 
Compatri (though what were seventy years ago believed 
to be parts of the walls of this ancient city have completely 
disappeared); while the highroad continued eastward, 
and crossed the railway just W. of the station which 
this village shares with Colonna. On the S. of Colonna 
lay the post-station of Ad Quintanas, which, small though 
it was, had a municipal constitution, and, as we learn 
from inscriptions, probably called itself the respublica 
Labicanorum Quintanensium: it was, indeed, important 
enough to send a bishop to the Council of a.p. 313, while 
from 813 to 649 the title of the see was Sub Augusta. 
From 649 till 1111 we hear of a bishop of Labici (the see 
is doubtless the same), to whom Tusculum was subject 
until that date. Then Tusculum was regarded as the 
more important until its destruction in 1172, though the 
residence of the bishop had been transferred to Rome 
when Labici and Tusculum became baronial castles. 
The site is marked by a very large tomb in the middle of 
the vineyards: and architectural remains, which may 
have decorated the forum of this roadside village, have 
come to light. The name has to do with the distance 
(15 miles) from Rome, like the village of the Decimienses 
at the tenth mile of the Via Latina, and it was fixed at 
the intersection of a number of branch roads, running 
back towards Frascati, up to Labici, and northward to 
join the modern road—in fact the Osteria della Colonna, 
which lies on the latter, to the N.E. of the village of Colonna 
(which does not appear in mediaeval records before 1093, 
150 


THE VIA LABICANA 


and contains no traces of antiquity) appears to have been 
an important road centre also. 

After this the main road continued on the level, more 
or less, for another 3 miles through a district rather less 
thickly inhabited in Roman times, which is now covered 
with vineyards. 

At the eighteenth ancient mile, at S. Cesareo, the 
modern road comes up very close to it. The name has 
been taken to betoken that here—as elsewhere where it 
occurs in the Campagna—there was a villa of the Caesars : 
and as a fact we know that Julius Caesar had a villa in 
the territory of Labici, in which he made his will only 
sixteen days before his death. Further, in the low ground 
to the E. there are the remains of a large nymphaeum, 
which may belong to a late reconstruction of this villa. 
A number of classical works of art have been found here 
and hereabouts, and a few are still preserved in the Villa 
Rospigliosi on the hill; while it is not impossible that two 
inscriptions dedicated by Romulus, son of Maxentius, to 
his father and mother before Maxentius became Emperor, 
were found here. 

S. Cesareo was another important road centre, and 
probably coincides with the post-station of Ad Statuas— 
though whether it took its name from the statues that 
decorated the interior of the Imperial villa is uncertain— 
it is more likely that there was some group of statues 
standing in the open. Roads diverge on the right to 
Monte Compatri and the pass of Algidus on the Via Latina, 
while the modern road, which, as we have seen, probably 
represents an ancient line, must do so from this point 
onwards as far as Palestrina, the pavement being pre- 
served for long stretches (despite modern destruction) 
along the present road from Zagarolo station to the former 
town. 

The Via Labicana now continues in a south-easterly 
direction, the modern road keeping parallel to it, but at 
a certain distance. Two ancient roads from Praeneste 
come down to join it, one of which went on to the pass 
of Algidus: and three more came from the present high- 

151 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


road, which now takes the north side of the narrow valley 
which is traversed by the modern railway, and on the 
edge of which the villages of Labico (an erroneous identi- 
fication) and Valmontone stand. All these go on to the 
Via Latina; and the district, desolate and uninteresting 
in itself, through which two main roads pass, appears 
to have been surprisingly rich in means of communication, 
considering how comparatively sparsely populated it 
was in ancient times—for though traces of ancient habi- 
tation are not lacking, the country was not attractive 
enough for us to find many villas. The Via Labicana 
is clearly marked enough, and the pavement preserved 
for considerable stretches, but all modern authorities, 
except the French Abbé Capmartin de Chaupy, wrongly’ 
make it coincide with the present highroad; and it was 
therefore interesting to be able to follow it step by step 
on foot for 12 miles or so—which is the only way of study- 
ing the Campagna in detail. 

The Itineraries tell us of two junctions of the Via Labi- 
cana with the Via Latina—one at Ad Pictas, 25 miles 
from Rome, and another at Ad Bivium, 30 miles from 
the city. The latter was close to the small catacombs of 
S. Llario, which have been almost entirely rifled. Some 
of the inscriptions are in the large Palazzo Doria at Val- 
montone. ‘They lie in the side of the low hill a mile and a 
half W. of the railway station of Segni, in the Sacco valley, 
above which stands the mediaeval castle of Piombinara, 
with a tower (now ruined) so lofty as to command a view 
over all this low country, furrowed with ravines, and to 
allow of signalling back to other castles in the hills and 
forward to other towers down the Sacco valley. 


VI 


THE VIA LATINA 


Capena, the Via Latina took another 500 yards 

to reach the gate called the Porta Latina, by which 
it left the Aurelian wall. Numerous discoveries of tombs 
-have been made both inside and outside the gate; and 
they seem to have been second only to those of the Via 
Appia in number, if not in importance, and to have extended 
a considerable way outside the city. Juvenal speaks of 
it, with the Flaminia, as a road along which illustrious 
men were buried. But remains above-ground are com- 
paratively few and need not detain us. 

The Via Latina runs in an absolutely straight line for 
the first 11 miles out of Rome, in a south-easterly direc- 
tion, with a slight turn a little after the first mile. This 
in itself would convey the impression that we have here 
to do with a military highway, like the Via Appia—and 
possibly one of slightly earlier origin; for the pass of 
Algidus through which it led was of especial importance 
in the wars against the Aequi in 465-389 B.c.; while, 
inasmuch as a Latin colony was founded at Cales in 
334 B.c., we must suppose that by then a road led that far. 
And this road was not the Via Labicana, but the Via 
Latina, which in the time of Augustus, as Strabo tells us, 
was the principal road of the two, and was indeed grouped 
by him with the Appia and the Valeria as one of the three 
most famous of Roman roads. The administration of the 
two was, as we have seen, placed under one curator ; 
and this was natural, as the two eventually became alter- 
native routes for the first 30 miles; and the Labicana 
may easily have superseded the Latina at a later date. 

-153 


‘ FTER DIVERGING HALF A MILE outside the Porta 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


The line of the road, marked until a few years ago by 
a lane, is now being obliterated by modern buildings: and 
we only get it again clearly after crossing the Via Appia 
Nuova, which issues from the Porta S. Giovanni. At 
the intersection a road to Castrimoenium diverged to the 
right, the line of which is followed for some miles by the 
railway to Albano, which has obliterated it almost com- 
pletely. Following the Via Latina to the left, we find a 
fine group of tombs, well known to visitors to Rome, 
with the pavement of the road well preserved. Several 
of them were lofty tombs in ornamental brickwork, in 
two stories or even three, including the subterranean 
chamber. The most prominent is on the right: the 
upper part is entirely new, but the subterranean chamber, 
with its fine decoration in white stucco on the barrel 
vault, is still well preserved. It is called the tomb of the 
Valerii—for no adequate reason that I can discover. It 
probably belongs to the middle of the second century. 
Almost opposite to it is the tomb of the Pancratii—not 
the name of a family, but of the burial club which owned 
the tomb: and here, too, the ceiling of the second subter- 
ranean chamber has very fine decorations in painted 
stucco. There is a huge sarcophagus in the centre; 
while in the first chamber, which appears to be latev in 
date, six were found. The superstructure has disappeared, 
and we only have the pavement of the room on the ground- 
floor level, with representations of sea-monsters. To the 
left of this tomb are the remains of the basilica of 
S. Stephen, which had been built into a large villa, now 
covered up, but which was perhaps Imperial property in 
the time of Alexander Severus. The church had been 
founded by Pope Leo I, as an inscription records, at the 
dying wish of Demetrias, perhaps the daughter of Anicius 
Olybrius, who was consul in a.p. 395. The foundations, 
for there is nothing more, are those of a very large basilica ; 
the confession may be seen in the centre, with the apse 
and the baptistery behind, and some remains of older 
walls of the villa. With the two tombs and the road it 
is Government property: but just beyond we emerge 
154 


THE VIA LATINA 


into a farm, where a modern quarry has come up almost 
to the line of the Via Latina. There were some more 
brick tombs on’ the left, but the first came down in the 
earthquake of January 1915, while another is used as a 
barn. Both of them formed objects of study for the 
architects of the Renaissance. 

On the left we see the lofty ruined aqueduct of the 
Aqua Claudia and Anio Novus, and the lower conduit, 
with thick cemented piers and narrow arches, of the Acqua 
Felice, which has made use of, and almost entirely des- 
troyed, the remains of the Aqua Marcia. The crossing 
of the former over the latter is, however, well preserved 
inside the Tor Fiscale, a lofty mediaeval tower. About 
500 yards further on the aqueducts must have crossed 
again; and in the long narrow space between them the 
Goths formed an entrenched camp when besieging Rome 
in 539, which is very clearly described by Procopius. 

The Via Latina itself passed to the E. of the Aqua 
Claudia just before the tower, and was never recrossed by 
it; but the Aqua Marcia crossed it thrice in the next 
couple of miles before leaving it on the left; while both 
aqueducts passed under the road in their subterranean 
course some 8 miles from the city. At this point there 
are seven tombs on the left of the road, one of them close 
to the new railway to Naples, which, like those mentioned 
above, seem to have aroused the interest of an unknown 
Spanish architect of about 1570, whose drawings, with 
many others of archaeological interest, are preserved in 
the Royal Library at Windsor Castle. Further E., Just 
between the present railway and the embankment of a 
still older railway line (given up in 1890), are the remains 
of a large villa, supplied with water from the Aqua Marcia, 
which runs close by. The supply entered at the bottom 
of an extremely well-preserved pentagonal reservoir in 
two stories, ornamented with niches on the outside. The 
villa itself is not very well preserved, but belongs to the 
time of Hadrian, as is indicated by the very large number 
of brick-stamps, mostly dating from a.p. 123, which I 
found there. It is also interesting as providing the 

155 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


earliest known example of the use of empty amphorae in 
the vaulting in order to decrease its weight. The many 
fragments of fine marbles show that it was once a building 
of considerable magnificence: the principal buildings 
were grouped round a courtyard. Passing through the 
arches of the Acqua Felice, we return to the Via Latina, 
and at about the fifth ancient mile reach the picturesque 
farm of Roma Vecchia, in the courtyard of which are a 
number of interesting marble fragments of inscriptions, 
etc. It lies close to the long line of arches of the Aqua 
Claudia, which without much interruption runs from the 
Naples railway as far as Capannelle, where the aqueduct 
emerged from the ground. The rapidly flowing stream 
which passes by it is the so-called Marrana Mariana, by 
which Pope Calixtus II in 1122 brought the water of 
some springs just above Grottaferrata (which Agrippa 
had tapped for the Aqua Julia) into Rome, making use, 
in the upper portion of its course, of a natural stream, 
which runs into the Anio, then availing himself where he 
could (as we shall see further on) of the channels of the 
ancient aqueducts of the Aqua Claudia, and, where he 
could not, digging a new channel for the purpose. 

The name of the farm of Sette Bassi comes from the 
ruins of an enormous villa (one of the most prominent 
in the lower Campagna) a little less than a mile away, which, 
to the imagination of the peasants, seemed large enough 
to be called ‘“‘ old Rome.’ But, inasmuch as the villa 
of the Quintilii on the Via Appia was no whit less imposing, 
it, too, acquired the same name; and the two were dis- 
tinguished as “‘ Roma Vecchia di Frascati”? and “‘ Roma 
Vecchia di Albano,”’ according to the destinations of the 
two roads on which they lie. Indeed, we sometimes 
find mention of a third ‘“‘ Roma Vecchia fuori di Porta 
Maggiore ”—which would be the villa at Tor de’ Schiavi. 
The point is not without importance; for many works 
of ancient art in the various museums of the world have 
their provenance indicated simply as “‘ Roma Vecchia,” 
and this is generally understood to refer to the villa of 
the Quintilii. After careful consideration, however, I 
156 


THE VIA LATINA 


think we may conclude that the excavations of 1775 and 
the following years were made by Gavin Hamilton in the 
villa of Sette Bassi on the Via Latina, and that we must 
therefore attribute to it two busts, an Endymion, an 
Ariadne, a relief of three Bacchantes, and one or two other 
works, most of which are now in the British Museum. But 
it is very likely that by about 1780 he was at work at the 
villa of the Quintilii also, and it is certain that the excava- 
tions of 1789-92, which were carried on for the express 
benefit of the Vatican Museum, were made there. And, 
unless or until some other source of information turns up, 
there are many other works of art which cannot be assigned. 
with certainty to either—so carelessly were such details 
noted in the late eighteenth century, when the recovery 
of works of art was the main object of excavation. 

The villa on the Via Latina is known by various other 
names in the sixteenth century. It was thought to be that 
of Licinius Murena, and Hamilton quoted a common belief 
that it had been that of Phyllis, the nurse of Domitian, 
who buried his body in her country house on the Via 
Latina—we are told no more. Others call it the Palace 
of Lucretia—without any reason at all: while the name 
Sette Bassi appears in the form Septembassi, the first 
time in a document of 955, and has, of course, led to the 
conjecture that the villa once belonged to a Septimius 
Bassus, of whom no one has ever heard. There would be 
more point in comparing it with the name Bassi or Vassi, 
which appears in the neighbourhood of Tivoli (where it 
has led to a villa near the villa of Quintilius Varus being 
assigned to Ventidius Bassus). 

All that we can say for certain is that, while the 
villa, as we know it, falls into three distinct periods, 
which are clearly distinguishable by differences in con- 
struction, the interval in date between them is extremely 
small, and all the three periods fall within the first forty 
years of the second century after Christ. 

The earliest portion is built of concrete faced with 
brickwork (see the right of Fig. 24), or brickwork mixed 


with opus reticulatum ; while in the second portion the 
157 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


latter predominates; but in the huge constructions of 
the third and latest part of the villa we get bands of brick- 
work running like red stripes across the rest of the wall 
facing, which is of small rectangular blocks of dark, ash-grey 
peperino from the Alban Hills. To this belongs the great 
hall, with two tiers of three windows in its back wall, 
extending for the whole height of the building, with three 
openings divided by pillars (centre of Fig. 24), giving on 
to the colonnaded walk which looked on to the court- 
yard or garden round which the main part of the villa was 
grouped. Other halls are a good deal more ruined, but 
we can still recognise the traces of them; and behind them 
ran a terrace with a view towards the city on the N.W. 
All this side of the villa was supported by a most compli- 
cated system of vaulted chambers, in which we get the 
earliest case known to students of architecture of the 
intersection of ribs of tiles to form a cross vault. Rivoira, 
in his Roman Architecture, has rightly insisted on the 
importance of this phenomenon in all the subsequent 
history of vaulting, and its influence on the architecture 
of the Middle Ages. Another new feature is the existence 
near the great hall of a large apse with external buttresses, 
which also creates a precedent in architecture. There is 
a window in the centre; and one can see that the architect 
originally intended to have added another on each side, 
but changed his mind as the building progressed. Such 
alterations of plan are very common in Roman buildings, 
and are interesting, as showing the manner of procedure 
adopted. Yet another point of interest in this villa is 
the frequency of small light shafts, due to the great height 
of the building and the concentration of its various parts, 
which are a distinctly modern feature. 

Besides the main block of the villa there are a number 
of detached buildings. One is a long, narrow store- 
house (?) at the further end of the garden, which, a century 
and a half ago, had a doorway at one end in ornamental 
brickwork : this formed the subject for a plate of Piranesi’s 
—the only one he dedicated to the villa, which, considering 


its size, had been rather neglected by artists and architects 
158 


‘ 
° * 
4 
ts 
. 
1 
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- 
’ 
‘ 
- 
/ 
. 7 
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' 
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‘bd 
’ 
. 
+. 
a 


26, VILLA OF THE QUINTILII (p. 185). 


To face p, 159. 


THE VIA LATINA 


until the last quarter of the eighteenth century. Another 


is a large reservoir, supplied by a branch aqueduct, the 
_arches of which can still be seen; it came probably from 


the Anio Novus, as the foulness of the deposit seems to 


indicate. 


S. of the whole group, on a knoll overlooking the 


: Via Latina, there is a little detached building with a large 


vaulted hall in the centre, the purpose of which is un- 
certain. It belongs to about the same period as the 
rest of the villa, but it is perhaps a few years later. 


The line of the old road continues to be traceable across 


the fields: but much of its pavement has been removed 
of recent years; and this has occurred quite lately at a 


point about 2 miles further on, where it could perfectly 
well have been preserved as a vineyard path instead of 
being mercilessly torn up. It would have been one of the 
best stretches of ancient pavement in the neighbourhood 
of the city. 

Just before this point the line of the old road has crossed 
the Marrana Mariana, which made use of the underground 
channel of the Aqua Claudia for a considerable distance, 
from the mineral spring called the Acqua Acetosa down- 


wards, being diverted into it from its natural course 


towards the Anio. Above the spring, on a rocky spur—the 
end of a lava stream, as a matter of fact—are the remains 
of a large villa which is known by the name of Centroni 
(Fig. 25). This can be traced back as far as 1204, and may 
quite well be a survival of the name of one of the most 
famous builders of villas round Rome of Juvenal’s day : 
** Centronius was a builder, and now he prepared towering 
villas on the curving shore of Gaeta, now on the summit of 
Tibur’s citadel, and now on the mountains of Praeneste, © 
with marbles sought from Greece and distant lands, out- 
doing the temples of Fortune and of Hercules.” Nothing 
is left but the platform on which the house itself was 
built; the exterior of the cryptoporticus has, however, 
an interesting series of blind arches springing from half 


- columns—a form of decoration which was to play a great 


part in later architecture. In the mass of rock below is 
159 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


a remarkable series of passages, branching off at right 
angles from two main lines, which served as quarries for 
pozzolana earth (so important in Roman concrete), well 
arranged so as to exhaust every part of the hill which it 
was safe to excavate. They are certainly of Roman 
date, for a regular entrance to them was left in the embank- 
ing wall of the villa; and one of the passages is lined with 
concrete to prevent a collapse. The largest passages are 
some 40 feet high and 18 wide; and those who wish to 
explore them had better be provided with a light. The 
modern road—whether even the first part of it (the Via 
Tuscolana) is of ancient origin is extremely doubtful 
—by this time has fallen into the line of the Via Latina, 
and bears the name of Via Anagnina, as a reminiscence 
of the days when it was still open as a posting route, 
which it ceased to be at some time in the eighteenth 
century—I find it still given as a possible route in a post- 
book of 1717. On the opposite side is the Casale di 
Morena, picturesquely placed on a knoll, once occupied by 
another very large villa, which its construction has largely 
obliterated. Whether the name, which is quite an old 
one (fourth century), is derived from the Roman cognomen 
Murena is not certain, though perhaps not improbable. 

Quite a number of antiquities have been found here or 
hereabouts, among them busts of Sophocles (?) and Hippo- 
crates, acquired by Charles Townley in 1770, which are 
now in the British Museum. 

A mile of gradual ascent brings us across the Naples 
main line, and the Frascati branch, which passes under the 
road in a tunnel: an amusing description of which was 
given in a little pamphlet in 1856, when the railway— 
the first in the Papal States—began to run: ‘“* All you, 
who quietly fly through the silent cave opened by the hand 
of man, you know not what a barrier Nature opposed to 
his courage! Thanks to those who were not frightened 
by the difficulties caused by the springs, which threatened 
to destroy the works, we too have our tunnel! ” 1 

Here is the Casale Ciampino (also called Villa Senni, 


1 It is marked on the map as F¥ (Fermata) Galleria. 
160 


THE VIA LATINA 


from its present owner), which takes its older name from 
a learned prelate of the late seventeenth century, and has 
passed it on to the railway junction and the aerodrome 
a couple of miles to the W.: and here was the site of the 
tenth ancient milestone from Rome. This being a post- 
station and the point of intersection of the so-called Via 
Cavona, the mediaeval name of an important cross-road 
from the Via Appia—and even further S., though we do 
not know how much—to the Via Praenestina, with a 
prolongation to the Via Tiburtina—a small village sprang 
up here. Like Ad Quintanas on the Via Labicana, it 
took its name from the distance, and its inhabitants became 
known as the Decimienses—the people who lived at the 
tenth milestone. But inscriptions show that it was also 
called Vicus Angusculanus, and was dependent on Tus- 
culum, whose Senate and people had a shrine of the Lares 
Augusti restored by one of their aediles. The whole 
vineyard above Villa Senni is full of buildings belonging 
to this village; and above are the remains of some large 
villas which were cut through in making the electric 
tramway to Frascati about twenty years ago. An interest- 
ing little catacomb was also found—rather a rarity so far 
out of Rome—the key of which is kept at the Abbey of 
Grottaferrata. 

On the other side of the modern road from Villa Senni 
(the old road lies rather further E.) remains of a shrine 
or temple were found in the nineties, and a number of 
terra-cotta votive objects have come to light at various 
times, similar to those found near Ponte di Nona. But 
we have no proper record of any of the discoveries in the 
area of this country village, which might have been, as 
Lanciani remarks, extremely instructive to us. 

Besides the Via Cavona, two other ancient roads turned 
off from the Via Latina at this point, both of them to the 
left. One kept parallel with the Via Latina for some way 
and then joined it a mile further on; but the other takes 
us into an important district and we must briefly speak 
of it now. It was indeed, unless we accept the modern 
Via Tuscolana as an ancient road (a point about which 

L 161 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


it is difficult to make up one’s mind),! the best route from 
Rome to Frascati (itself in Roman days nothing more 
than a large Imperial villa), and the north-western slopes 
of the ridge of Tusculum, which were a resort even more 
favoured in ancient days than in the Renaissance. Here, 
as in the territory of Tivoli, it would be useless to attempt 
to mention these ruins individually—those who require 
further details may be referred to the Bibliography—and 
I shall only mention a few of the more important and 
interesting ruins. 

The first is a large round tomb known as the Torre di 
Micara, and often called—for no satisfactory reason that 
I can make out—the tomb of Lucullus. As at present 
preserved, it is a circular wall of hewn volcanic stone, 
with false joints, about 90 feet in diameter inside and 
28 high; it was turned into a fortress in the Middle Ages 
and is now a farmyard. There are some remains of tomb 
chambers in brick; but how it terminated above in anti- 
quity is not easy to see, as it has been so much altered. 

Here four roads meet, and there were two different 
routes to Frascati. Taking the longer, which keeps a 
good deal higher up among the olives, we pass the remains 
of a very large villa. Nothing but the platform is left ; 
but this occupies an area something like 550 feet square, 
and the S.W. part of it is entirely artificial. It contains 
arched chambers of the most complicated description, 
the planning of which has led both Kircher and Canina 
astray (it is necessary to work with a light, for these 
chambers—once one passes inside the cryptoporticus 
which runs round the outer edge of the platform—were 
only intended to increase the area of the platform, and 
were not used even for the accommodation of slaves). 
What further complicates the matter is that the platform 
was built in front of an earlier eryptoporticus, the windows 
of which can still be recognised, which is hidden inside 


1 As the portion down from Frascati to the Via Cavona at Fonte 
Vermicino must be ancient, we may, if the sinuousness of the rest 
makes us reject it as a Roman road from Fonte Vermicino, suppose 
that the old line went on in a northerly direction to the Via Labicana 
at Torre Nuova. 


162 


THE VIA LATINA 


its innermost recesses. It was divided into two, longi- 
tudinally, by a row of brick columns covered with stucco 
and with Roman Doric capitals, only a few of which are 
still standing ; and it has been rendered still more difficult 
of access by the construction of a later supporting wall 
along its whole length, close to the columns. The outside 
of the later platform is decorated with half columns, 
with semicircular arches between them, and a flat archi- 
trave above—another case of an interesting architectural 
feature. 

Two branch roads return from here to the Via Latina, 
taking advantage of the comparatively level ground—for 
the ridge of Tusculum begins soon afterwards. One of 
them goes on to the district of Castrimoenium (Marino). 
We now pass under the Villa Muti and the Villa Montalto 
on its outlying slopes—both occupying the sites of ancient 
villas—and then pass close to the Villa Torlonia with its 
wonderful fountains and ilex groves. Here, too, scanty 
remains of Roman construction may be seen—nothing 
else is left—and whether the foundations in the garden 
terrace on a level with the present villa are of Roman 
date or not is doubtful. It is, however, possible that 
lead pipes were found here by Annibale Caro, the poet, in 
1565, bearing the name of Lucullus; and in that case 
here was the famous villa of this most luxurious of Romans. 
Frascati itself has grown considerably of late years: but 
the mediaeval nucleus of the town, confined within its old 
walls (on which the arms of Henry Stuart, Cardinal York, 
the last of his house, who lived here for many years as 
bishop, and died here, may still be seen), occupies almost 
exactly the site of a great Roman villa, of which some 
remains of no great importance (including some remains 
of the lower terrace, in the centre of which is a small 
rectangular chamber with an apse at the back against the 
hill-side, called the nymphaeum of Lucullus) have been 
seen at various points. It appears to have belonged to 
Passienus Crispus, whose second wife, Agrippina, the 
mother of Nero, compassed his death for the sake of his 
property. After her death it passed into Nero’s hands, 

1638 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


and it certainly belonged to the Emperors of the Flavian 
House, and presumably remained Imperial property right 
through, though we have no positive evidence one way or 
the other. It does not appear among the donations 
of parts of the Imperial domain made by Constantine to 
various churches in Rome and its neighbourhood; and 
its subsequent history is quite unknown (for the legend 
of its donation to S. Benedict has no foundation in fact) 
until it appears again in the ninth century as a village 
called Frascata (from frasche, bushes—derived either 
from the material of the huts under which the inhabitants 
sheltered or from the bushes which covered its ruins) 
which gradually grew in importance, and had three or 
four churches of its own even before the destruction of 
Tusculum. 

Only a little way above the modern town lies the 
splendid Villa Aldobrandini, with its fountains and its 
magnificent hemicycle, which Lanciani well compares with 
an ancient nymphaeum. The Villa Mondragone rests 
upon the remains of an ancient villa which certainly 
belonged to the two Quintilii, and fell into the Imperial 
domain when Commodus put them to death. Below 
it is the so-called Barco Borghese, i.e. the Parco, or 
enclosure, in which wild animals were kept. It, too, was 
the site of a great villa, and has a platform entirely arti- 
ficial, resting entirely on vaulted chambers, now (as they 
always were) pitch dark, and displaying an almost dia- 
bolical ingenuity on the part of their constructor. For, 
though all the angles are right angles, they form a veritable 
maze, and the making of the plan—the work of the late 
Mr. F. G. Newton—was a very long and difficult business ; 
for there was only one way, as a rule, of getting to each 
group of chambers, and that a long and devious one; and 
so a single wrong turning would mean retracing one’s steps. 
Doubtless this plan has something to do with the distribu- 
tion and weight of the buildings on the upper terrace, 
but, as this is now merely a garden, one has unluckily 
no notion of what they were like. And such speculations 
seem idle as one looks down from the terrace of Mondragone 
164 


THE VIA LATINA 


and admires one of the finest views in the whole world 
on a sunny day—supposing, indeed, that one is lucky 
enough to get in. For the Frascati Villas are less easily 
accessible than they were, the public, if what is told is 
true, having proved themselves not too worthy of the 
confidence their owners had placed in them; and either a 
carriage or a guide: has, strictly speaking, to be hired, 
even by those who wish to go through the Villa Aldo- 
brandini up to Tusculum, so that the longer route by 
Camaldoli is the only one that is entirely free from 
restraint. 

Below Frascati, too, there were numerous villas; but 
what is preserved in most cases amounts to a long, rect- 
angular platform, supported by lofty walls, the upper 
surface of which has been used for a vineyard or oliveyard ; 
and while there are often some subterranean chambers 
preserved in the platform, we see little or nothing of the 
superstructure. The only adjunct of the villa which 
generally survives is its water reservoirs—and that owing 
to the massiveness of their construction. ‘These vary much 
in size—some of them are quite small single chambers, 
while others may have six arcades each way and measure 
as much as 100 feet square: and they are sometimes 
above-ground, sometimes subterranean. The open circular 
tank also occurs sometimes. 

This district to the N. of Frascati was reached by 
numerous ancient roads descending the slopes, some of 
which end at the Via Cavona, while others descend still 
further into the lower Campagna. One of the largest villas 
is attributed, on the faith of an inscription on a water- 
pipe, to the Emperor Tiberius, and another to Galba; 
and the evidence in both cases seems to be sufficient— 
especially as in the former case another pipe bearing 
Vespasian’s name came to light, which showed that it 
remained Imperial property. Half a mile to the E. of 
the Barco di Borghese, above the road to Monte Porzio, 
we have another Imperial villa, of which nothing is left 
but two huge platforms known as the Cappellette (the little 
chapels), from the niches in the supporting walls. This is 

165 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


shown by lead pipes to have belonged to Matidia, the niece 
(or the grandniece) of Trajan. 

We have already seen that the villa on the site of Mon- 
dragone became Imperial property about a.p. 183; and, 
as all the villas that we have named lie fairly close together, 
and in the same district, it may not be too much to suppose 
that, by the time of Commodus, the Imperial domain 
extended for a radius of about a mile round Frascati on 
the N. and E. A mile further down the hill, just below 
the Naples railway, between two of the ancient roads 
leading down from Frascati, is a small extinct crater, 
now full of vineyards, and bearing the name of. Pantano 
Secco (the dry marsh). It was once a lake, and was drained 
at some unknown date—perhaps in the Middle Ages—and 
it is this that, from the time of Nibby onwards, has been 
held, and in my opinion rightly, to be the famous Lake 
Regillus, as being the only site proposed that can safely 
be said to be in the territory of Tusculum—except Prata 
Porci, which never was a lake at all. 

Returning to the Via Latina, which we left at Villa 
Senni, we find on the left of the modern road the pic- 
turesque castle of Borghetto, built by the Counts of Tus- 
culum about the end of the eleventh century, astride the 
old road, which was avoided thenceforth as far as possible 
by those who did not wish to have toll levied on them. 
The deep valley to the right (which looks like an extinct 
crater) is called the Valle Marciana; the name is an old 
one (ninth century), and it can be by no mere chance that 
a freedwoman of Marciana, the sister of Trajan, made 
a dedication of some object unknown at the Vicus 
Angusculanus, as an inscription found there records. 
The natural inference, therefore, is that it takes its name 
from some property which she had in the district. At 
the southern extremity of it is the Sorgente Preziosa, a tepid 
spring which has rightly been recognised as that of the 
Aqua Tepula. It is not, and never was, very copious, 
and it is rather a mystery why it was thought worth while 
to convey it to Rome. 

At the modern tramway junction (about ne twelfth 
166 


THE VIA LATINA 


ancient mile) the Via Latina is running almost due E.., 
and continues to do so henceforth for about 3 miles, until 
it comes under Tusculum. To the S. of us is the 
famous abbey of Grottaferrata, the seat of the Basilian 
monastery founded by S. Nilus. It may perhaps take 
its name (Crypta Ferrata) from a square chamber under 
the campanile of the church, which was probably the 
cella of a Roman tomb. The monastery itself con- 
tains various objects of interest, and notably a well- 
kept museum of local antiquities, inscriptions, and works 
of art. 

It stands upon the remains of an ancient Roman villa 
_—one of the many candidates (they are about as numerous 
as those for identification with the Lake Regillus) to be 
considered the famous Tusculan villa of Cicero. But 
this is a tradition that cannot be traced earlier than the 
middle of the fifteenth century : and most modern writers 
think that it is to be sought half a mile further to the S.E. 
-—on the southern extremity of a hill called the Colle delle 
Ginestre, now covered with vineyards and modern houses, 
but once, as its name would imply, with broom—where 
the remains are more scanty, but the evidence seems to 
them more favourable. But after having carefully 
examined it, I am bound to state my opinion that the 
only serious argument is this—that Cicero paid a water 
rate for the Aqua Crabra, the springs of which are at 
about 2,000 feet above sea-level, below Rocca Priora— 
so that the villa cannot have been on the heights of Tus- 
culum, which rules out a good many candidates. We really 
know no more about its site than this (unless we could 
be sure that the Villa of Lucullus was on the site of the 
Villa Torlonia, and then we only know that the two were 
‘“near’—not how near) and the various passages in 
ancient authors, traditional names, and discoveries of 
works of art and other objects which are brought in as 
evidence do not help us to determine the site more closely. 
The tramway company has, however, followed local usage 
in calling the place Poggio Tulliano. 

In the valley to the S.—which, under the abbey, 

167 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


widens out into a great ravine—are the springs of the 
Aqua Julia, now the source of the Marrana Mariana. . 

At La Pedica, which, being at the thirteenth mile, must 
correspond with the post-station of Roboraria, the modern 
road from Frascati intersects the Via Latina at right angles. 
It probably follows an ancient line, and a mile S., at the 
Ponte Squarciarelli, divides into three branches. One 
runs southward to Marino, another due S. to the E. 
shores of the Alban Lake, and on to Nemi and Velletri, 
while the third ascends to Rocca di Papa. 

A little further on an ancient road, the pavement of 
which was cleared about 1850, ascends the southern slopes 
of Tusculum, and, like the road approaching from the 
N., reaches the city at the amphitheatre, passing the 
tomb of one M. Coelius Vinicianus, who was a contem- 
porary of Cicero’s. The amphitheatre was placed at 
the western extremity of the primitive city in a depres- 
sion in the narrow neck which almost divides the ridge 
into two parts, and was thus an important element in the 
defence: for here was the only easy entrance, which could 
have been held by a small force. 

At a later date this neck naturally became an important 
traffic point, and three different ancient roads have been 
traced as coming up here from the N. The amphitheatre 
was, indeed, only built about the middle of the second 
century after Christ. It has only been very partially 
cleared, and is much filled in and overgrown; it is only 
of moderate size (the total diameter being about 260 feet 
by 175 feet). To the W. is a large flat rectangular meadow 
surrounded by pines, above the Villa Rufinella—the site 
of a large villa, which most writers wish to call that of 
Cicero; while on the E. is a great platform supported 
by arched substructions, which in considerable measure 
have fallen away down the slope. This was thought 
to be the villa of Cicero in the sixteenth century, but 
lately has often been called the villa of Tiberius. But 
on the platform there is nothing but a large core of con- 
crete, which seems quite clearly to be the podium of a 
temple facing S.W., and, though somewhat small in pro- 
168 


THE VIA LATINA 


portion to the size of the platform on which it stands, is 
very well placed as regards position, commanding as it 
does a magnificent view over the lower ground over the 
slopes of the crater lake of Albano, and right away down 
to the sea. The site is thus eminently suitable for one 
of the chief temples of the city. As the temple of Castor 
and Pollux must be sought at the highest summit, we 
may, if we will, assign this temple to Jupiter. Macrobius 
says that “there are some who record that this month 
(May) came into our calendar from that of Tusculum, in 
which Maius is still called a god, who is Jupiter, so called, 
that is, from his greatness and majesty.” And Livy 
tells us that it was struck by lightning in 210 B.c., and 
almost the whole of the roof was removed. To the left 
of the ruins the main road ascends the ridge in a south- 
easterly and then in an easterly direction, while a branch 
goes off parallel to it at a rather lower level, leading to 
some private houses on the slopes to the N. 

A few hundred yards further up an open level space 
seems to mark the site of the forum, the remains of 
which were discovered by excavations in the first half of 
last century, together with a number of inscriptions and 
works of art, several of which, until quite recently, were 
built into a small house on the site; most of the latter 
have now been removed for safe keeping. The forum 
was soon, however, covered up again, and whether the 
plan that we have of it is trustworthy is a little uncertain. 

On the. E. side of the area lay the theatre, the stage 
of which still has the chamber under it, reached by 
rectangular shafts, from which the curtain was drawn 
up. But the best-preserved portion is the cavea, where 
the rows of seats, resting against the hill-side, may still 
be seen. To the right are three or four steps on a curve 
—probably a fountain fed by the large square reservoir 
just behind the theatre. On the left of the forum a 
road descends to an interesting fountain; the basin, a 
rectangular trough of volcanic stone, bears on the front 
an inscription of two aediles of the time of Cicero. The 
chamber at the back is interesting as having a pointed 

169 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


roof and not a rounded arch—which has induced some 
to attribute to it a very high antiquity, though I myself 
am not inclined to do so, and the embankment wall in 
which it is enclosed does not seem to be very early either. 
Only a little way further on the ground rises steeply to 
the summit, where undoubtedly stood the citadel—now, 
however, entirely covered with ruins of the mediaeval 
buildings and fortifications destroyed in 1191, when Tus- 
culum ceased to exist, its place being taken by Frascati. 
The position is of great natural strength, as the ground 
falls steeply away on all sides; and it has been still further 
strengthened by cuttings in the rock, though of forti- 
fications of the Roman or pre-Roman period there is no 
trace. At the very top of the hill is a cross, planted there 
in October 18991 by the students of the English College 
during their villeggiatura at Monte Porzio, where their 
country house was until they acquired Palazzola a few 
years back. Among the blocks of stone used to support 
it was an inscription of about 70 B.c., probably set up by 
the attendants of the temple of Castor and Pollux. That 
the inscription was brought up here afterwards (unless 
_as building material in the Middle Ages) is unlikely ; and 
we may, therefore, suppose that the temple stood up here. 
The history of Tusculum may be briefly sketched 
as follows. According to tradition it was founded by 
Telegonus, the son of Ulysses and Circe. The first men- 
tion of it is on the occasion when its chief, Octavius Mami- 
lius, espoused the cause of his father-in-law, Tarquinius 
Superbus, on his expulsion from Rome, and led the thirty — 
cities of the Latin League against Rome at the battle 
of the Lake Regillus. The history of the subsequent 
period is not very clear; one authority states that it 
was taken by the Romans in 484 B.c. Coins of the late 
Republic allude to its relief by Rome when besieged by 
the Latins in 374 B.c., and it was one of the oldest of 
Roman municipalities, and seems to have remained friendly 
to Rome, with two exceptions. In 211 B.c. Hannibal 


1 It took the place of several earlier ones (The Venerabile (Rome, 
1926), iii. 27). | 
170 


THE VIA LATINA 


appeared before its gates, but was not admitted and did 
not attempt to force an entrance. It may have been in 
vogue as a villeggiatura as early as this: at the end of 
the Republic, at any rate, as Cicero says, it was full of 
men of consular rank: it was so favourite a summer 
resort that it had become almost a suburb of Rome: but 
during the Imperial period the town itself is hardly 
mentioned. 

Its mediaeval history is obscure, and in the ninth century 
we have the rise of the famous Counts of Tusculum, from 
whom the Colonna family traces its descent. In 1167 
the people of Tusculum, with the help of a small band 
of Germans, defeated the Romans at Monte Porzio; but 
three years later it had to surrender to the Pope: while 
in 1191 it was handed over to the Romans, who left not 
one stone upon another. 

A road diverging to the left of the theatre avoided 
the ascent to the arx, keeping under it and continuing 
along the top of the ridge beyond it. From this road, 
traces of the pavement of which still exist, we may com- 
mand a view of the Via Latina; it runs in the deep valley 
below (the Valle della Molara) between the ridge in which 
we are, which is the rim of the original larger crater of 

‘the Alban volcano, and the smaller crater which was 
_ raised by a later eruption in the centre of it. There are 
a certain number of villas on the ridge and its southern 
slopes; while lower down on the N. lie the villages of 
Monte Porzio (derived from the mediaeval name Mons 
Porculus, and having nothing to do with Porcius Cato) 
and Monte Compatri. The road passed to the 5. of the 
highest point of the ridge, the Monte Salomone (2,536 feet), 
on which there are the remains of a large mediaeval 
castle, covered by mounds of earth. To the W. of it is a 
path (probably on an ancient line) descending steeply to 
the N. through a narrow valley to the monastery of 
S. Silvestro above Monte Compatri, while another branch 
road ran down more gradually along the slopes on the 
S. to the Via Latina. Keeping up and straight on, Rocca 
Priora is reached in another mile and a half. This high- 

471 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


lying village is probably identical with the ancient Corbio. 
Its order in the various lists of the ancient cities of Latium 
may or may not be topographical, and it would be hazar- 
dous to try and determine its position from them. But 
it is quite clear from the account of Horatius’s campaign 
against the Aequi of the mountains to the S.E. that it 
was not far from Algidus; while of Ortona, which is 
mentioned in connexion with it, we know nothing at 
all. The Arx Carventana, which was an important post 
in the continual warfare with the Aequi for the pass of 
Algidus—which meant the command of the route to the 
S.E.—is equally undiscoverable, and it is not bound to 
correspond with any site at present inhabited. An equal 
disappointment will probably be the lot of anyone who 
attempts to find the temples of Diana and Fortune in 
Algido—the former often mentioned by Horace, the latter 
once by Livy. I have ascended every summit along the 
rim of the crater and have found no traces of anything 
that can with any certainty be identified with them. 

At the actual pass, which is just beyond the twenty- 
eighth ancient milestone, and is a narrow gap in the crater 
rim, very easily defensible, there is nothing but the 
remains of the post-station of the Osteria dell’ Aglio or 
della Cava; while on the Maschio d’Ariano, the prominent 
summit a couple of miles to the S., there is nothing but 
a very large mediaeval castle : and those who have thought 
that the Temple of Diana was here have simply mistaken 
for it the apse of the church of the castle—which, of course, 
may have obliterated the temple. The view from the 
summit is, of course, magnificent; but so it is from any 
of the summits as we go S.W. along the ridge, over the 
Monte Peschio (the highest point of all, 3,080 feet above 
sea-level) and on to the deep depression through which 
the post-road to Velletri crossed the Maczhia della Faiola, 
by a steep ascent on which brigandage was so frequent 
that a hill close by acquired the name of Monte degli 
Appesi, or Hangman Hill. 

Returning to the pass, we find the Via Latina descend- 
ing fairly rapidly, with a branch going off to the Via 
172 


THE VIA LATINA 


Labicana almost at once. The line of the road can be 
clearly traced, but the country is less interesting, and 
there are few remains of buildings. As we have seen, 
there are several branch roads connecting these two 
main roads; while two branch roads led to the S. 
through the gap between the Alban Hills and the Volscian 
mountains. 

The modern village of Artena lies on a spur projecting 
to the N. from them; and high above it are the massive 
walls of unhewn limestone blocks of an old town, the 
ancient name of which is uncertain. Our road keeps 
far below it, and eventually is joined by the Via Labicana 
at Ad Bivium. 


_ 1738 


VII 


THE VIA APPIA 


dealing with it fully has never been written. The 

reasons for this are various. If we take the road 
as a whole there are very few writers who have ever 
studied, still less followed, its entire course. Mr. Robert 
Gardner and I are among them: but the publication 
of our results has been delayed chiefly by a difficulty 
which affects more especially the first part of the road. 
This is the non-existence till now of indices to vol. vi. 
of the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, in which will 
be found the inscriptions, mainly sepulchral, of the first 
9 miles of the road; and as the tombs of the Via Appia 
were in origin more numerous and are certainly better 
known and preserved than those of any other road—thanks 
largely to the excavations conducted and described by 
Canina under the order of Pius IX, as we shall see in the 
sequel—the lack has been a serious one. 

When we pass beyond the Alban Hills and reach the 
Pomptine Marshes, considerations of a different order 
have deterred us. It is this section of the Archaeological 
Survey of Italy, extending as far as Terracina and the old 
Neapolitan frontier, which still forms the boundary be- 
tween the compartimenti of Latium and Campania, between 
the province of Rome (which is co-extensive with the 
former) and the province of Caserta (which is the north- 
westernmost province of the latter), that has been selected 
by the Italian authorities for the commencement of their 
labours: and these are already well advanced. 

From what I have said it will be clear that the moment 
174 


| De THE FAME of the Via Appia, a monograph 


THE VIA APPIA 


has not yet arrived when the history of the Via Appia and 
its monuments as a whole can profitably be written, 
though we shall before long have before us all the avail- 
able material, so that the task will not need to be greatly 
delayed. 

In the meantine, there is a somewhat bewildering maze 
of general works and special monographs: and I would 
suggest as a useful indication for those who desire to 
pursue the subject in detail an article of my own in the 
Mélanges de l’Ecole Frangaise, xxiii. (1903) 375 sqq., in 
which they will find much of the bibliography. 

It is a short catalogue raisonné of a collection of 226 
drawings of the various monuments of the Via Appia 
from Rome to Benevento, drawn by Carlo Labruzzi in 
_1777, in which year he accompanied Sir Richard Colt 
Hoare, of Stourhead, in a tour along the road. Sir 
Richard, in his Recollections Abroad (reprinted in his 
Classical Tour), has described the journey in some detail. 
The drawings themselves, bound in five splendid folio 
volumes, were in Sir Richard’s own library. They were 
sold with the rest of the Stourhead treasures in 1883, 
came up again at Christie’s in 1901, were knocked down 
for a ridiculously low figure, and soon passed into my 
possession. 

Another set, which contains only 188 drawings, which 
are Labruzzi’s preliminary drafts for Sir Richard’s set, 
is in the Biblioteca Sarti in Rome, and there are a few 
others in private collections which are not to be found in 
either series. 

Only 48 of them have been engraved, 24 in full size by 
_Labruzzi himself, and 24 more by Parboni and Poggioli, 
on a reduced scale. 

The only modern general work on the subject is Ripos- 
telli and Marucchi’s Via Appia, and that does not go 
beyond the-sixth mile. 

The Via Appia was constructed in 312 B.c. as a military 
road by the famous censor Appius Claudius Caecus. 
Livy speaks of the march of the mutineers of 342 B.c. 
from’ Campania as far as the eighth mile of the road 

175 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


quae nunc Appia est.1 It runs in an absolutely straight 
line from just beyond the Almo as far as Terracina 
(with only one slight divergence just beyond Aricia), and 
this is probably due to an autocratic order by the blind 
old censor. 

It seems very doubtful whether the primitive track 
which led from Rome to the southern shores of the Alban 
Lake would have taken a line of this kind: such is not a 
characteristic of early roads, and we have probably found 
already in the Via Castrimoeniensis the original track 
to Alba Longa and the southern portion of the Alban 
Hills. Aerial photography may, of course, resolve our 
doubts, and, indeed, until this test has been apphed it 
would seem advisable to reserve judgment. 

The successive prolongations of the road to Venusia, 
Tarentum, and finally to its termination at Brindisium, 
need not detain us here, and we may turn our attention 
to the study of the course of the road itself. 

Remains of the Porta Capena of the Servian wall 
were found by Parker in 1867, and its site is now marked 
by a brick ruin in the middle of one of the lawns of the 
Passeggiata Archeologica.2. The principal artery of this 
park, a road about 50 feet wide, follows a tortuous course, 
and has completely obliterated the line of the older road 
which was previously to be seen running between narrow 
walls. Excavations down to the ancient level would, it 
is true, have been difficult, as the water would have been 
reached very soon. 

The distance from the Porta Capena to the Porta Appia 
of the walls of Aurelian (corrupted into Porta d’Accia in 
the Middle Ages), the modern Porta S. Sebastiano, is 
just over a mile. 

There are a number of interesting monuments, both 
Pagan and Christian, which, however, are generally dealt 
with in connexion with the city of Rome itself, and need 
not, therefore, be described here. 


1 VII. 39. 
* A branch of the Aqua Marcia passed over it, and both Juvenal 
and Martial allude to the dripping of the water from the arch. 


176 


\ 


THE VIA APPIA 


The site of the first milestone would thus fall, not 
outside the Porta S. Sebastiano (where a modern inscrip- 
tion has been set up), but just inside, as Lanciani had 
already determined.! 

A milestone set up by Vespasian, with an additional 
inscription of Nerva, was found in the sixteenth century, 
and was placed on the balustrade of the Capitol, where it 
still stands. It is perhaps the best known of Roman 
milestones, and its shape is typical of the period. 

The gate itself is one of the most imposing of the whole 
enceinte. It is flanked by two semicircular external 
towers of brick, which (as they stand) do not form part 
of the original structure. This has, indeed, been com- 

pletely transformed by restorations after the period of 
- Aurelian. 

The lower part of these towers has been masked and 
strengthened, as in the Porta Flaminia, by rectangular 
bastions of blocks of marble resting on a base of blocks of 
travertine. These bastions were probably added by 
Honorius, and the same I believe to have been the case 
at the Porta Flaminia. ‘The marble blocks doubtless came 
from tombs: a number of them have projecting bosses. 

Immediately outside the gate, on the high ground on 
the left, was a celebrated temple of Mars, the ascent to 
which was known as the Clivus Martis. An inscription, 
now in the Vatican, records that its steepness was reduced 
at the public expense. Every year the knights rode in 
procession from here to the Capitol. The temple gave its 
name of Ad Martis to the whole neighbourhood, even 
down to Christian times; and the poet Terence had a 
garden hereabouts. 

The house on the right, immediately before reaching 
the railway, is built upon an ancient tomb of the first or 
the second century after Christ. Some of the ornamental 
brickwork of the exterior is still visible; and the interior, 
a chamber with a barrel vault decorated with reliefs in 
stucco, is fairly well preserved. The niches for the urns 
may still be seen. 

1 Storia degli Scavi, iii. 11. 
M 177 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


On the other side of the railway a lane goes off west- 
ward to the Via Ostiensis (the so-called Vicolo della 
Travicella, i.e. Traversella), which is probably of ancient 
origin. Immediately beyond it we cross a brook,* the 
ancient Almo, by a bridge which has been restored in 
the Middle Ages. Tomassetti? states that traces of the 
ancient bridge, and of the artificial bed of the stream made 
of peperino slabs, can be seen when the water is low enough. 
The river god was worshipped by the Romans, and at 
the confluence of the stream with the Tiber the statue of 
Cybele, and the objects connected with her worship, 
were solemnly washed on March 27th. The stream itself 
must in ancient times have had its origin near Capannelle, 
on the Via Latina: the arrangement by which it still 
receives the greater part of its waters from the Marrana 
dell’? Acqua Mariana is mediaeval. 

As soon as we have crossed the Almo, the series of 
tombs on each side of the Via-Appia begins to be prominent. 
We first see a huge mass of concrete on the left, which is 
generally attributed to Geta; and a similar mass on the 
right, with an internal chamber, which is usually called 
the tomb of Priscilla, the wife of Abascantus, freedman 
of Domitian. The grounds for these attributions are in 
both cases insufficient. 

At the second mile, according to Pliny the Elder, was 
situated the Campus Rediculi, where a pet crow of Tiberius 
was buried, and there is every likelihood that it was 
connected with the fanum Rediculi, the sanctuary of the 
divinity who, it was believed, caused Hannibal to turn 
back from his advance on Rome. 

On the left is the church of Domine quo vadis ? which 
takes its name from the well-known legend that S. Peter, 
flying from Rome, met Our Lord, and asked him the 
question. Our Lord replied, Vado iterum crucifigi, and 
S. Peter returned to the city to meet his death. A paving- 
stone of the road, with the imprint of Our Lord’s footsteps 
(as is believed) is still preserved in the church. The 

: Ag modern name Acquataccio is a corruption of Acqua d’Accia. 

» 40. 
178 


THE VIA APPIA 


legend can be traced back as far as the third century, and 
was accepted as genuine by St. Ambrose. 

Just beyond it are the divergence of the Via Ardeatina 
(on the right) and the Valle della Caffarella (on the left), 
and here is a circular chapel erected by Cardinal Reginald 
Pole. Here the straight line of the Via Appia actually 
begins. 

Beyond it the road begins to rise, and on the left again 
is the huge concrete core of a tomb; while on the same 
side, at the top of the hill, is a large columbarium, now 
the wine-cellar of an osteria. Its niches are empty: it 
is generally called that of the freedman of Augustus, 
but without reason; while that of the slaves and freed- 
men of Livia, found in the eighteenth century, was 
destroyed, and its inscriptions conveyed to the Capitoline 
Museum. 

On the right, occupying the whole space between the 
Via Appia and the present course of the Via Ardeatina, as 
far as the Via delle Sette Chiese, is the property which 
has been assigned to the Trappist monks of Tre Fontane, 
who are the guardians of the catacombs of 5. Calisto. 

Here may be seen the remains of several tombs, one of 
which is interesting, as giving the transition between the 
rites of cremation and inhumation at the beginning of 
the third century after Christ—both being found in use in 
the same tomb. 

Numerous inscriptions which have been found in the 
course of agricultural operations are built into the walls 
of the farm. 

The catacombs themselves can hardly find description 
here. An ancient road may still be seen in the garden 
above them, running E.S.E., ie. in a direction which, if 
prolonged, falls into the line of the Via Appia Pignatelli, 
which makes the antiquity of the latter probable if not 
certain. The Via Appia Pignatelli, which diverges to the 
left of the Via Appia a little further on, takes its name 
from Innocent XII, who belonged to this family, and who 
constructed it as far as the Via Appia Nuova, which it 


joins between the fourth and the fifth mile. It is very 
179 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


likely that it follows the line of an ancient road which served 
as a mediaeval variation of the Via Appia, very likely after 
the establishment of the castle at Capo di Bove. 

On the left, beyond the divergence, are the Jewish cata- 
combs of the Vigna Randanini; while others lie on the 
Via Appia Pignatelli. Tomassetti points out that these 
cemeteries form a group, and are doubtless connected 
with the fact of the existence of a Jewish colony near the 
Porta Capena. 

Before we follow the Via Appia itself further, it may 
be well to study the Triopion, an estate of Annia Regilla, 
the wife of Herodes Atticus, to which the Via Appia 
Pignatelli leads. Herodes was a Greek philosopher, the 
teacher of Marcus Aurelius and of Lucius Verus. The 
death of his wife, in a.p. 161, left him a widower, and he 
was accused by her brother of being concerned in her 
death. Suspicion continued to weigh on him, and he 
tried to justify himself in the eyes of the world by extrava- 
gant expressions of grief. Inscriptions now in Paris 
(there are facsimiles of them in the Villa Borghese) and 
at Naples mention a temple consecrated to Ceres and 
Faustina and a field sacred to Minerva and to Nemesis, 
well guarded and enclosed by a wall. 

Little remains of these buildings, and of all the magni- 
ficence with which they were decorated. For Herodes 
Atticus was the richest man of his time (owing his wealth, 
so the story goes, in great measure to the accidental dis- 
covery by his father of a very large hoard of treasure in 
the foundations of a house he owned in Athens), and 
spent enormous sums in embellishing various cities of 
Greece ; and the Stadium of Athens, where his tomb was 
placed, was his gift to the city. A few interesting relics 
of his estate are still to be seen. First there is the church 
of S. Urbano, no doubt the temple of Ceres and Faustina, 
in which was the statue of Annia Regilla herself—a brick 
building with a portico of four columns. Inside are some 
interesting frescoes of the year 1011, illustrating the lives 
of S. Urban and three other saints, which are of im- 
portance in the history of the art of the period. Near 
180 


THE VIA APPIA 


S. Urbano are scanty remains of other buildings: high up 
on the right is a prominent water reservoir, and on a lower 
knoll a grove of ilexes, which, of course, has nothing to 
do with the nymph Egeria, the counsellor of Numa Pom- 
pilius, whose grove was outside the Servian wall. 

Below in the valley is a nymphaeum, called the grotto 
of the nymph Egeria under the same misconception—an 
oblong chamber with niches and a fountain at the end, 
with a recumbent female statue from a sarcophagus over 
it to typify the nymph. It was all once faced with marble, 
but now is unadorned except with maidenhair. It has 
frequently formed the subject of sketches and studies by 
artists and architects of all nations. 

Above on the hill is the entrance to the catacombs of 
Praetextatus; and further down the valley towards 
Rome, standing in a farmyard, is a picturesque brick 
tomb, finely decorated on the outside with columns and 
cornices in cut brick, of great elegance in design: while 
the use of yellow bricks in combination with the dark 
red gives a very beautiful colour-effect. It is thought 
by Lanciani and Lugli to have been the tomb of Annia 
Regilla, and though the interior will be seen, by those 
who penetrate into what is now a fowl-house, to be faced 
with brickwork of far less careful construction, the identi- 
fication will probably stand. It is generally known as 
the temple of the Deus Rediculus, but there is of course no 
warrant for the name. 

Returning to the Via Appia, we find the church of S. 
Sebastiano on the right, with its memories of SS. Peter 
and Paul. Without entering deeply into the controversies 
which have been aroused by the recent discoveries there— 
and which, as they mainly concern Christian archaeology, 
do not belong to our present subject—we may notice 
that it was found that the church was built on the edge 
of a low cliff some 25 feet high, at the foot of which were 
three finely preserved tombs, originally columbaria, but 
later changed into burial vaults and used by Christians in 
the first half of the third century a.p. These tombs 
must have given the origin to the name catacomb from 

181 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


kara kvpBas (in the hollows), while at the top of the 
depression was a line of still earlier columbaria along a 
branch road of the Via Appia. About the middle of the 
third century the tombs were destroyed and covered over, 
and a large open court built over the whole, joining on, 
it would seem, to a villa which already existed near the 
earlier tombs, parts of which, however, were at the same 
time destroyed. The walls of it bear inscriptions showing 
that in this century and the next the place was visited 
by pilgrims, because it was in some way connected with 
the Apostles—perhaps their bodies were removed here 
from their resting-places by the Via Ostiensis and the 
Via Cornelia for temporary security during the persecu- 
tion of A.D. 258.1 | 
On the left, at the bottom of the hill, is a farmhouse, 
built on the foundations of the circular temple-tomb of 
Romulus, the son of Maxentius, who died in his childhood. | 
It stands in the centre of a large square courtyard, in 
which must have assembled the processions before they 
entered the circus which lies behind. This circus is 
extremely well preserved, and was doubtless erected for 
the funeral games in his honour. An inscription erected 
to him after his deification served to identify it—previ- 
ously, for some strange reason, the whole group was 
associated with Caracalla—and was placed at the curved 
end of the circus after the excavations of 1828, in which 
it was completely cleared and planned. We may note 
especially the spina—the long wall down the middle, 
which divided the arena into two halves, and was decorated — 
with fountains, etc.—and also with egg-like objects, 
which marked the number of laps run. On it stood an 
obelisk, which originally belonged to some monument of 
the time of Domitian, and was brought here by Maxentius ; 
it was excavated in 1649, and taken by Innocent XII to 
adorn Piazza Navona, which, being built on the ruins of 
the stadium, is of precisely the same shape as the circus. 
1 A summary of the discussion will be found in Professor Stuart 


Jones’s article on ‘‘ The Apostles in Rome ”’ in the Quarterly Review 
for October 1925. 


182 


THE VIA APPIA 


The vaulting which supported the seats has fallen, but 
we may see the empty jars which were built into it in 
order to decrease its weight. The outer walls and the 
towers (oppida) on each side of the carceres, or starting 
gates, are well preserved. On the N. side of the circus, 
which runs due E. and W., is the Imperial box, in com- 
munication with a large villa, with two ruined apses with 
half domes. The greater part of it was erected by Maxen- 
tius, including a gallery or portico over 200 yards long 
connecting it with the circus, under which traces of earlier 
buildings may be seen. 

We now ascend again steeply, and on the left find the 
circular tomb of Caecilia Metella. Whether her husband 
was the triumvir Crassus or not has been treated as doubt- 
ful: but from a careful study of the decorations it seems 
clear that the tomb should be attributed to the beginning 
of the Augustan period, whereas the triumvir fell at Carrhae 
in 53 B.c. It is therefore more probably his son (or even 
grandson) who is in question. 

The tomb itself, a great drum of concrete faced with 
blocks of travertine, stood on a square base, of which only 
the core remains. It was some 60 feet in diameter outside. 
Two corridors, one above the other, led into the brick- 
lined chamber in the interior of the core, which now has 
no roof. This is generally believed to have been supported 
by a conical vault, but we really do not know much about 
it, though a conical termination to the whole, projecting 
above the drum, is the most probable. In any case, xt 
was removed when the monument became the keep of 
the castle, which first belonged to the Counts of Tusculum, 
and passed to the Caetani in the time of Boniface VIII, 
when it was restored. The baronial palace was built 
close against the keep, and opposite it was the Gothic 
church: the castle itself occupied a rectangular space 
defended by towers, enclosing the road for a length of 
over 200 yards. This, no doubt, led gradually to its 
abandonment in favour of the Via Appia Pignatelli. 

The castle was called Capo di Bove from the ox skulls 
on the frieze of the tomb, and a lofty tower a mile or so to 

183 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


the S. was called jestingly Zampa di Bove (the hoof of 
the ox). | 

The Via Appia has now reached the summit of a long 
ridge, formed by a lava stream from the Alban voleano, 
and runs along it for over 8 miles, commanding the 
most magnificent views over the whole Campagna, the 
flatter district between it and the Sabine mountains, 
the Alban Hills, and that desolate country between itself 
and the range of high sand dunes that shuts out the view of 
the sea. In this straight stretch it is flanked by an almost 
continuous line of tombs, all of them in a more or less 
ruined condition. They were excavated in the papacy 
of Pius EX under the direction of Canina, and the fragments 
discovered have in some cases been set up on or near 
the tombs, while in others they have been dispersed. The 
excavators were not able to go as far inwards from the 
road as might have been advisable, in order to lay bare 
the monuments of minor importance which probably 
lay behind the more prominent tombs in the front row— 
if we are to judge by the analogy of other roads, and also 
by such excavations as have been made, e.g. on the right 
just beyond the fourth mile, in the Lugari property. Here 
there is a large brick tomb built on an ancient cross-road, 
which once led to a large villa. The plan of this has been 
recovered and published ; when excavated, it was remark- 
ably complete in all its details, the rooms being grouped 
round three sides of a peristyle with a garden on the 
fourth. Many of them could be identified with more or 
less certainty, and the baths and one of the store-rooms, 
with a series of huge jars as at Ostia, were especially well 
preserved. The original house was a small structure 
of the Republican period, with a little courtyard, and a 
cistern under it. To this the larger building was added 
in the time of Antoninus Pius and altered later, a Christian 
oratory and baptistery being added. 

The large tomb is probably that of S. Urban the bishop, 
a contemporary of S. Caecilia, who suffered martyrdom 
under Marcus Aurelius; and the house is then that of 
Marmenia, who herself was beheaded with her daughter 
184 


THE VIA APPIA 


and some twenty-two others, all of whom were very 
likely buried on the spot, as exactly this number of bodies 
was found. Other houses were also found on the same 
estate: and indeed it is likely that the ground on both 
sides of the main road for some considerable distance was 
occupied by buildings, as it offers such splendid sites. 

At the fifth mile on the left there are far more con- 
siderable ruins—those of the great villa of the Quintilii, 
which cover a large extent of ground, of over a quarter of 
a mile square. I have studied them in detail and pub- 
lished plans of them, so that I need only refer briefly to 
the villa here.4' The earliest buildings, which are the first 
we come to, belong to the time of Hadrian, including the 
large and prominent buttressed reservoir, to which a 
mediaeval tower has been added, which is now the farm- 
house of S. Maria Nuova (Fig. 26). To the second period 
belonged a long, narrow garden in the shape of a stadium, 
with the curved end towards the Via Appia. This garden 
ran north-eastward towards the brow of the hill, where 
the principal buildings of the villa were situated, looking 
down on the Via Appia Nuova. There was a private 
branch aqueduct, starting probably from the channel 
of the Aqua Marcia: and the names on the water pipes 
showed thai the villa had belonged to two wealthy brothers, - 
Quintilius Condianus and Quintilius Maximus, whose death 
was compassed by Commodus for motives of jealousy 
and perhaps for the sake of their property, in which he 
certainly afterwards lived. 

It seems to me probable that some of the extensive 
alterations in the villa are due to him—and, in particular, 
the change in the garden. ‘The curved end of it was given 
up, and pierced by an entrance with three openings 
leading into a small courtyard, upon which fronted 
a large monumental fountain, with a semicircular arch 
above it: but the rest of it was much enlarged, and 
became rectangular in shape. Further changes were made 
in the villa proper at various periods, and notably the 
two great rectangular halls, which still tower above the 

1 See Ausonia, iv. 25. 


185 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


rest, were inserted at a comparatively late period. One 
of them is interesting inasmuch as it was undoubtedly 
a hot bath—for the terra-cotta flue-pipes can still be seen 
in its walls—and yet it had a number of very large 
windows on all four sides, which must in some way have 
been closed. Window-glass was not unknown to the 
ancients, but large panes were never made; and if these 
were windows at all, and cloths were not employed—as 
sometimes in the Renaissance—to close the openings, 
we must suppose that the frames were massive. At 
S. Sabina, for instance, the sixth-century round-headed 
windows of the nave had heavy gypsum frames, with 
small panes of selenite let into them. 

In contrast to the comparative concentration of Sette 
Bassi there is such a lack of unity in the appearance of 
the various parts of the villa, as it is at present, that it is 
not surprising that its true nature was not suspected until - 
the excavation of 1828; and it was previously called 
Roma Vecchia. We have seen that most of the objects 
found there at the end of the eighteenth century are in 
the Vatican, though one of the best—a boy with a goose, 
from an original by the sculptor Boéthius, is in the Louvre 
—while those found in the later excavations are in the 
inaccessible Museo Torlonia. The plan was unluckily 
not taken on either occasion—which is unfortunate, as 
as the recent appearance of the motor-plough, now busy 
here as elsewhere in fighting what Mussolini calls the 
“battaglia del grano,” simultaneously brought to light 
and destroyed the remains of a long row of pilasters, 
which belonged to a portico, as it would seem, though now 
it is difficult to assign them to their proper place. 

Two mounds on the opposite side of the road are ground- 
lessly called the tombs of the Horatii and Curatii: they 
probably conceal large mausolea of the Imperial period. 
A little further on, in a field on the same side, is a curious 
monument, made out of blocks of marble from tombs 
(some of them still bearing inscriptions), which seems to 
have been an oil press with basins for refining the oil— 
currently known as the farmacia, or chemist’s shop. 
186 


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THE VIA APPIA 


Half a mile or more on the left is the large round tomb 
known as Casal Rotondo, with a house (the base of a 
lofty mediaeval tower, now gone) on the top of it. 

To whom it belonged is unknown—the inscription of 
Cotta, which some associate with it, cannot be said to 
belong to it with any certainty. Here the new railway 
to Naples passes under the Via Appia ; and an ancient 
branch road ran off due S., being joined near the Casale 
Torricola (it has given its name to a railway station which 
may be a convenience to walkers when the train service 
improves) by another, which diverged from the Via Appia 
near the tomb of Caecilia Metella, and kept at half a mile 
or so from it all the way: it led on to the district of 
Fiorano. Half a mile further is the Torre di Selce, a 
mediaeval tower of grey peperino, with a band of white 
marble to render it visible from a distance (as elsewhere 
in the Campagna). It stands on a large round tomb, the 
concrete foundations of which are in the form of a wheel : 
the intervals between the spokes were no doubt filled 
with earth, the mass of which was thus better supported 
than would otherwise have been the case. 

A little further on the road descends sharply in a curve, 
and there is. another prominent tower on the right. The 
route to the Alban Hills (Fig. 27) was evidently well 
guarded by its masters. On the same side, by the road, 
are some ruins of a sanctuary of Silvanus, which is not far 
from a temple of Hercules reconstructed by Domitian, 
8 miles from Rome and 6 from the Arx Albana (his Alban 
villa on the site of Alba Longa). There, too, was the 
estate of the satirist Persius, where he died. Other tombs 
are to be seen here and there, though they become rarer. 
On the right, about the ninth mile, we may note a large 
round mausoleum, which may be that of Gallienus: for 
we know it to have been at this distance from the city. 

Here or hereabouts, too, Gavin Hamilton found the 
Discobolus preparing for the throw (a copy of a work of 
the sculptor Naucydes) in 1792 : it is now in the Vatican. 

Here is the farm of Fiorano, within which are various 


remains of interest. The district seems to have been 
187 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES ~ 


thickly inhabited, and we notice here, for the first time, — 
considerable traces of the regulation of the course of the 
streams which traverse it, by artificial tunnels cut through 
the volcanic rock. 

A couple of miles to the S.W. are the remarkable ruins 
of La Giostra—the jousting-place. A long narrow hill, the 
shape of a stadium (whence its name), has an embank- 
ment wall of hewn stone fairly well preserved on three 
sides of it; and upon the top of the hill are remains of a 
Roman villa, mostly consisting (as usual!) of reservoirs 
(one of which is open, and is circular, some 70 feet in 
diameter), the strength of which has caused them to resist © 
the action of time. : 

The stone walls have generally been attributed to the 
ancient city of Tellenae, ever since Nibby first visited 
them about a century ago. We know little of its site, but 
it was another of the old cities of Latium. But the weak 
point of the theory is that there is no trace of a cutting 
or of any other defence on the S.E. (unless it has been 
completely filled up by the villa, which seems doubtful), 
so as to isolate the position on the most vulnerable side: 
and this seems to me a fatal objection; for the wall 
(which is much ruined) would have had to have been far 
more massive and lofty than it appears to have ever been, 
in order to be of any use. We may add that the stone 
walls are backed into concrete, and that the blocks are 
approximately 2 Roman feet high—though they vary 
a good deal. 

As to the supposed remains of two other early villages 
(Apiolae and Mugillae) which have been identified a little 
further to the E., towards Le Frattocchie, I am bound to 
say that I feel even more sceptical. There are remains 
in blocks of hewn stone, which may belong to the late 
Republic or early Empire; but interesting though they 
are, they belong too much to a study of the Campagna in 
detail to find a place in this rapid survey. Let us hope 
that it may be possible for the Italian authorities to test 
these hypotheses by excavation, in the course of the 
Archaeological Survey of Italy which is now in progress. 
188 


THE VIA APPIA 


We may now return to the Via Appia, which continues 

in its straight course, with a few interesting tombs on each 

side of it. Shortly after the site of the eleventh ancient 

milestone, and close to the modern one, it is joined by 

the modern highroad, which follows it right up to Albano. 

The hamlet where they meet is called Le Frattocchie, 
and here was an important road centre in ancient days. 

We have first of all the so-called Via Cavona, of which 
we have already spoken more than once. It started from 
the Via Praenestina, and linked up the main roads which 
it intersected. But beyond the Via Appia it is not so 
clear, and we cannot trace a cross-road further W. than 
Falcognana. Then to the E. of the Via Appia there is 
-a regular network of ancient roads, which communicated 
eventually in one way or another with Castrimoenium, 
| which is represented more or less by the modern Marino. 
“Its territory, too, is full of the remains of ancient villas, 
which we cannot here attempt to describe in detail. 

A little further on the road to Antium, still followed 
by the modern highroad, diverges to the right: and in 
the fork between it and the Via Appia we find the site 

of the ancient village of Bovillae. This village must early 
have acquired some importance as the successor of Alba 
Longa; though much of what is related about it is purely 
legendary, for it is situated on gently sloping ground, 
utterly unsuitable for defence. This was doubtless chosen 
by the Romans to prevent any possibility of its rising 
against them—and, if so, is the first example of a principle 
which they frequently applied, even in Britain. When 
the Via Appia was constructed, Bovillae was the first 
-post-station out of Rome: and it was so far that the 
road was paved in 292 B.c. 

But what we have left of it dates from the time when 
it was given a new importance by the connexion with 
it of the Gens Iulia, the family of Julius Caesar and 
Augustus and the early Emperors, which was supposed 
to have originated from Iulus, son of Aeneas, the founder 
of Alba Longa. The family ancestor-cult was situated 
here; and at Bovillae Augustus’s body lay for a night 

189 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


on its way to Rome, and was escorted from here to the 
city by the knights. The family worship became a 
State worship, and was carried on by the Augustales : 
Tiberius reconstructed the shrine, in which a statue of 
the deified Augustus was placed, and instituted games in 
the circus; a few of the arches of the straight end of — 
this may still be seen among the vineyards (Fig. 28), 
and the hollow which it occupied is quite clearly marked. 
The municipal inscriptions refer to the inhabitants as 
Albani Longani Bovillenses, showing the connexion 
clearly. And Clodius’s villa, which stood above the high 
road a little further on, in the gardens of the house now 
occupied as a summer residence by the North Amerisaia 
College, had, as we are expressly told, been constructed on 
the site at the expense of the shrines and sacred groves | 
of Alba Longa, which had been preserved when the city | 
was destroyed. Indeed, the Vestal Virgins of Alba — 
dwelt at Bovillae after that. Close here, too, Milo dragged — 
Clodius from an inn in which he had taken refuge, and 
slew him. 

But except the circus there is little left. The attempt 
to trace the city walls has been made unsuccessfully— _ 
I doubt if there ever were any; the shrine cannot be 
identified with any certainty (though an altar erected 
to Jupiter Pater by the family in the days of Sulla or — 
earlier, “‘ according to the laws of Alba,’’ was found a 
century ago); and we are reduced to a few ruins and 
quantities of debris among the vineyards and the ground- : 
plan (hardly more) of a small theatre. 

Above Bovillae a cross-road runs to the Anzio road on. 
one side and up to Marino on the other, passing up through af 
the ravine now occupied by a beautiful wood (the Parco 
Colonna), in which some have wished to find the site of — 
the Aqua Ferentina, the meeting-place of the Latin M 
League, though, I think, wrongly. 

The road ascends more and more rapidly between — 
walls, and a branch (perhaps of ancient origin) ascends ~ 
steeply to the modern village of Castel Gandolfo, which — 
occupies a splendid position on the W. edge of the © 
190 | 


THE VIA APPIA 


extinct crater in the depths of which the Lake of 
Albano lies. 

The “long white town” recalls the ancient name so 
irresistibly that one would be inclined to place Alba 
Longa here, even were other evidences lacking: but that 
they are not. The discovery near here of important 
cemeteries of the Iron Age would not suffice by itself, 
for others have been found on the N. of the lake: but 
stronger arguments may be found in the close connexion 
of Bovillae (which lies just below) with Alba Longa, and 
the fact that Domitian’s great villa 4 is called invidiously 
Ara Albana by Juvenal and Tacitus. This once splendid 
structure lies in the lovely grounds of the Villa Barberini 
immediately to the S. of the little town, commanding a 
wonderful view over the sea and the Campagna on the 
one side and the lake on the other, in which, on clear, still 
days, the wooded cone of the Alban Mount is reflected. 
The residential part has not yet been excavated. From 
the garden terrace (on which are the remains of a little 
private theatre, with remarkably well-preserved stucco 
decorations, and also a number of nymphaea, while below 
lies a stadium or hippodrome) a tunnel led through the 
summit of the ridge to a road which zigzagged down to 
the lake shore. Some earlier structures situated down 
here were incorporated in the Imperial domain, and 
notably two cool grottos, architecturally decorated— 
veritable ‘‘abodes of the nymphs ’—well known to 
artists and architects from Piranesi’s plates. He also 
studied the famous emissarium of the Alban Lake, hewn 
through the rock, so it was said, in 397 B.c. at the bidding 
of the Delphic oracles, which declared that Veii could 
only be taken when the waters of the lake reached the 
sea. It is more probable that it was in reality intended 
to carry the water rapidly through the porous strata, so 
that it could not soak through the sides of the crater 
and render the districts below marshy and waterlogged. 
The channel is over a mile in length, about 6 feet high 
and 4 broad, and has a sluice chamber at its egress from 


1 For this and the whole district, see Lugli’s articles. 
191 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


the lake. And here, if anywhere, we may notice Piranesi’s 
genius for exaggeration: for the chamber would seem 
immense, whereas in reality it is small. Sometimes, too, 
his mind seems to run riot, as when he imagines compli- 
cated foundations to buildings such as the mausoleum of 
Hadrian and some of the bridges in Rome, over which, 
as they lay below-ground, he could exercise his fantasy 
freely: though even in such plates as those, Professor 
Hind finds much to admire. But, except in scale, he is 
trustworthy in details, and faithfully represented what 
he saw; and for that his evidence has often been too 
lightly set aside. . 

At certain points round the lake shore were embank- 
ment and landing stages for small pleasure boats—but 
they ran by no means all round, as has hitherto been 
generally believed: and on the S. side there was but 
one isolated house, with a long, arcaded facade, now 
hidden among the woods, and accessible only by water or 
by a steep path. On the upper edge of the lake a good 
many more Romans naturally dwelt—for the Imperial 
domain does not seem to have extended over the whole of 
it by any means. It does seem quite likely, however, that 
the Roman villa which once existed on the site of Palazzola 
(Fig. 29), on the E. of the lake below the summit of Monte 
Cavo, belonged to the Emperor Augustus, and may have 
passed on with other Imperial properties. It is, however, 
more important to insist that we cannot possibly (despite 
the testimony of Dionysius) attempt to place Alba Longa 
here : for the position is quite indefensible on the upper 
side of the escarpments behind Palazzola, which have 
attracted the attention of many writers. If we examine 
the space above them, between the lake and the moun- 
tain, which is traversed by a number of paths, probably 
ancient in origin, we shall find that it is utterly unsuited 
for the site of an ancient city and does not correspond in 
the least to Livy’s description: ‘‘It was called Longa 
Alba because its site stretched along a ridge.” The 
remains of the Roman villa at Palazzola are scanty, but it 
must extend under the garden terrace of the old monastery ; 
192 


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THE VIA APPIA 


this has an interesting history, and is now the summer 
residence of the English College in Rome, who were for- 
tunate enough to secure it only a few years ago. 

From Castel Gandolfo two lovely roads, fringed with 
old ilexes, the Galleria di Sopra and the Galleria di Sotto 
(the latter followed by the electric tram), lead to Albano. 
If we keep to the upper one, along the crater rim, we soon 
come to the Capuchin monastery of Albano. The old wood 
behind it occupies a lofty hill, and one would imagine that 
some temple had once stood there; but not a vestige of 
antiquity is to be seen. Just below it is an amphitheatre, 
the upper side of which is mostly cut out of the solid rock, 
while the lower is built of arches of concrete and supported 
on a terrace, the supporting wall of which is decorated 
with niches. It has been computed that it might have 
held about 16,000 people at most: and the method of 
its construction showed that it can have had nothing to 
do with Domitian, but must have been erected by the 
second Parthian Legion; and indeed two of the brick- 
stamps bear the name of this corps. It lies, too, just above 
the camp that was erected for it by Septimius Severus, 
who, having dissolved the Praetorian Guard, brought in 
this legion to take its place. A number of tombstones 
of Parthian soldiers were found in the woods between 
Albano and Ariccia some sixty years ago. The massive 
walls of the camp, built of blocks of hewn stone, still 
enclose a roughly rectangular space of about 450 by 250 
yards, which is occupied by the upper part of the town of 
Albano, but do not extend as far as the Via Appia. The 
-eamp is very long in proportion to its width, and the 
closest parallel is found in the camp of Borcovicus (House- 
steads) on “‘ Hadrian’s”’ wall. One of the side gates is 
preserved, and also one of the corner towers: while as 
well as the barracks, etc., belonging to the camp (of 
which only scanty remains exist) there are some earlier 
buildings within the enceinte, notably a round building, 
now the church of S. Maria della Rotonda, which dates from 
the time of Domitian and was probably an isolated nym- 
1 See the College magazine (The Venerabile), i. 189 ; ii. 3, 182, 222. 

N 1938 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


phaeum, and a huge reservoir measuring about 150 by — 


100 feet, divided into five aisles by four rows of nine 


pillars each; it is very finely preserved, and was till 


recently used for the supply of the town. 

Below the road and the camp are other ruins, of which 
the most important are the thermae, which also belong 
to the Severan period, and may indeed be a trifle earlier 
than the amphitheatre: while the Villa Doria, to the 


N.W., contains the remains of a large villa, which is gener- — 


ally supposed to be that of Pompey. Cicero twice men- 
tions it in such a way as to show that it lay beyond that 
of Clodius, while it was still in the Alban territory: and 
this is the only possible site. There are here remains of 
a Republican villa enlarged in the time of Domitian and 
Hadrian until it became a palatial structure, now largely 
concealed by trees. On the other hand, the lofty tomb 
on the other side of the highroad, called the Tomb of 
Pompey, is of a later period, and in any case could have 
nothing to do with him, for Plutarch tells us that his 
family tomb was in his property: and in it he buried his 
young wife Julia. 

The foundation of the basilica of St. John the Baptist 
by Constantine, and the donation to it of the deserted 
barracks, was the beginning of the city of Albano (civitas 
Albanensis), which soon became an episcopal see of con- 
siderable importance. 

The Via Appia runs straight through the town, and at 
the end of it the old road descends steeply to the right by 
the curious tomb wrongly attributed to Arruns, son of 
Porsenna, or to the Horatii and Curiatii, while the modern 
road passes over a deep ravine (in which are the lovely 
woods of the Parco Chigi, with their variety of trees) 


by a fine viaduct erected by Pius IX, and enters the upper 


part of the village of Ariccia, between the Palazzo Chigi 


and the circular church erected by Bernini. This is a _ 


building in his more restrained style: but even more 
successful is the little church of Castel Gandolfo, though 
more fantastic in detail. 


The modern village of Ariccia (Fig. 80) must occupy the 


194 


THE VIA APPIA 


citadel of the ancient town, most of the buildings of which 
are in the valley below. They comprise the remains of a 
temple, some traces of the post-station—we shall all 
remember that Horace spent his first night out of Rome 
here hospitio modico (in a moderate inn)—and a few 
other indeterminate ruins. 

Here the road was intersected by a cross-road, which 
came up from the coast, one branch beginning at Ardea 
and another at Antium, and led on up through the modern 
village, and along the space between the Lake of Albano 
and the Lake of Nemi, until it reached the slopes of the 
Alban Mount. Here it begins to ascend in a long sweeping 
curve (in the latter part of which the pavement is well 
preserved, and has only been cleared of recent years) until 
it reaches a bend above Rocca di Papa, where it turns 
sharply to the right and begins to zigzag up the moun- 
tain. It then joins the regular path (which is of modern 
origin) from Rocca di Papa at a small chapel and ascends 
to the summit. Here once stood the federal sanctuary 
of Jupiter Latiaris: but the excavations of the seven- 
teenth century show that there was little left then up 
there, and certainly it is quite impossible to maintain 
the charge brought against Cardinal York of having de- 
stroyed the well-preserved remains of the temple, with its 
columns of marble, in order to erect the now disused 
Passionist Monastery, which is the only modern building 
on the summit. 

It is, indeed, doubtful of what nature the temple was 
and where exactly it stood: for more recent excavations 
have never been carried to a decisive point. But that 
will not disturb us in our contemplation of the magni- 
ficent panorama of Latium which unfolds itself before 
us. We are on the highest point of the rim of the inner 
crater, which is ringed round by wooded hills, enclosing 
a depression popularly known as the Camp of Hannibal. 
Outside this ring of hills is a narrow depression between 
it and the outer ring of the original crater, which had a 
diameter of 9 or 10 miles. 

The road by which we have ascended Monte Cavo is 

195 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES — 


the only route by which it was accessible to wheeled — 
traffic in ancient times; and as there was naturally a 
regular network of roads leading to the mountain from 


the various cities of Latium, they all had to approach the 


mountain from the S. The cities of the N. and E. would — 


have made use of the road later followed by the post 
road to Velletri and Naples through the woods of the 
Faiola, but not Rome itself. Had this been the intention the 


Via Triumphalis would have been placed on the northern ~ 


slopes of the mountain, so as to form a continuation of 
the Via Castrimoeniensis. It is, therefore, most likely 
that the Via Appia was followed from Rome—a fact not 
without importance, for many a general who failed to 
attain the honour of a triumph on the Capitol was allowed 
to celebrate one at the temple of Jupiter Latiaris. And 
the rock-cut tomb near Palazzola, being decorated with 
the priest’s cap and staff, as well as the fasces, has been 
reasonably taken to be that of Cn. Cornelius Scipio His- 
palus, who furnishes, so far as we know, the only instance 
of a man who, being both pontifex and consul, died during 
his tenure of the latter office, in 176 B.c. As his illness 
was caused by a fall on his return from the Alban Mount, 
where he had been to celebrate the Feriae Latinae, it 
is probable that he was buried here because at Palazzola 


was situated the house at which the consuls stayed when 
they took part in such ceremonies ; though it is rather 
out of the line of the Via Triumphalis, it would certainly © 


have been a pleasant lodging. 


From the deep depression in which the post-station of — 
Aricia lay, itself an extinct crater, the Via Appia ascended _ 
upon an embankment (Fig. 81) which is the finest structure _ 
of the kind to be seen in the neighbourhood of the city. — 
It is about 200 yards long, and there is little doubt that _ 
it is the beggar-haunted pons Aricinus of which Juvenal — 
speaks: the steep ascent providing a favourable Oppor- — 
tunity for members of that fraternity. On the upper — 


side the hill-side ascends steeply to the modern road: but 


the two routes rejoin at Genzano, a village of médiaeval / 
origin, famous for its wine, which lies on the S.W. edge @ 


196 


32. LAKE OF NEMI (p. 197). 


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THE VIA APPIA 


of the Lake of Nemi (Fig. 32). The lovely little crater, 
with the “ mirror of Diana ”’ glistening below, is best seen 
from the garden of the Villa Sforza-Cesarini, the pines of 
which are seen in the foreground of some of John Richard 
Cozens’ finest water-colours. Below the garden the path 
following the Roman branch road descends steeply to 
the lake. Its shores are precipitous on the E., and in the 
scanty bits of more or less level ground violets and daffodils 
are grown for the Rome flower market. It is heavily 
cultivated on the W. and N., where the remains of the 
great platform on which the temple of Diana stood can 
be seen: it is probable that there was no large monu- 
mental building, but only a group of small chapels; or 
else some large architectural fragments would surely by 
now have come to light. The origin of the cult is certainly 
an old one, for even in Imperial times the priest, usually a 
gladiator or fugitive slave, won his priesthood by killing 
the previous holder in fight, having previously plucked a 
mistletoe bough (the Golden Bough of Sir James Frazer’s 
well-known work) from the sacred grove. Off the temple 
were anchored two great floating “‘ barges” (like the 
College barges at Oxford), equipped with marble pave- 
ments and lead water-pipes, and with beam-heads of bronze 
decorated with the heads of lions and wolves, holding 
mooring rings for small boats. They are some of the 
finest bronzes of the kind that we have, and are in the 
Museo delle Terme in Rome. They are generally attri- 
buted to Tiberius, though the name on the water-pipes is 
that of his successor, Caligula. 

Above the temple lies the picturesque village of Nemi ; 
it is dominated by a mediaeval castle with a large 
round tower: and behind it is the mediaeval post-road 
(following, probably, an ancient line) which was in use 
until the time of Pius VI, and crossed the outer rim of 
the crater by a steep ascent through the Macchia della 
Faiola and by a still steeper descent to Velletri. A house 
on the road still bears the name of Casale dei Corsi, from 
the Corsican police who were responsible for the safety 
of the road; and a hill some way off bears the grim name 

197 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


of Monte degli Impiccati—another Hangman Hill—in — 


allusion no doubt to the execution of brigands. 
If we cross this road we enter the Valle Vivaro, and 


after a few miles may reach the Via Latina at the pass of © 
Algidus, passing by the Lago della Doganella—another i 
unsuccessful candidate for identification with Lake : 


Regillus. 


Returning to the Via Appia at Genzano we find that | 


the modern road coincides with it for about a mile; and 


then the old road is left to its own devices until it reaches — 


the Pomptine plain a mile below Cisterna. At the point 
of separation the eighteenth milestone, erected by Nerva, 


was found a few years ago, and has been re-erected near — 


to its old site: and from here we obtain a remarkable 
view of the flat plain and the straight line of the ancient 
Via Appia (there once more followed by the modern road) 
leading through it towards Terracina, which is just hidden 
from us by a projecting hill. On the right is the great 
limestone rock of Monte Circeo, looking like an island— 


as it must have been in ancient days—and the Ponza — 


group of islands are further out to sea. 
From this milestone the old Via Appia descended 
rapidly in a straight line, and its pavement is quite well 


preserved for over a mile, until it reaches the undulating — 


post-road of Papal days, which it soon crosses, after 
passing over two torrents by massive stone single-arched 
bridges, still well preserved. 

Some ruins on the left belong to the post-station of 


Sublanuvium, and this part of the road is also dominated _ 


by the mediaeval castle of S. Gennaro. 


After this the remains of the ancient Via Appia, clear 
enough a century ago, have been obliterated by cultiva- — 
tion for a while, and its line is not easy to find at first, — 
but it can be traced with a certain amount of patience, — 
and then is better preserved. It descends fairly fast 


through undulating country. 


The most interesting point is that called Solluna (perhaps } 
the site of a post-station called Ad Sponsas, but this — 
depends upon the identification of Tres Tabernae, the — 


198 


THE VIA APPIA 


Apostolic Three Taverns, which is, unluckily, quite un- 
certain), where it was intersected by an ancient road 
from Velletri towards the sea, called the Via Mactorina. 

Here a number of interesting pagan inscriptions have 
been found from time to time, several of them used up 
later in a Christian cemetery. Further on are the remains 
of a small aqueduct, and shortly after it crosses the 
modern road and runs parallel with it to Cisterna, where 
we may leave it, as to follow its course through the Pomp- 
tine Marshes would take us too far afield. 

The present road to Velletri diverges to the left from 
the ancient Via Appia at the eighteenth milestone and 
keeps high along the hill-side. It has no remarkable 
features except the fine views which it commands, and 
was only made a few years ago, when the electric tram 
was constructed. The undulating road constructed by 
Pius VI, to take the place of that over the Faiola, turns 
off to the right, keeping round the lofty Monte Cagnoletti, 
which (one would have thought) owed its name to several 
statues of dogs which have been found among the remains 
of one (or more) of the villas on its summit, and its southern 
slopes, by Gavin Hamilton, were it not that the name is a 
- good deal older. 

After a mile the road diverges to the right to Civita 
Lavinia, the ancient Lanuvium,! built on a hill which 
projects forward into the Campagna. The acropolis of 
this primitive Latin city occupied a vine-clad hill, on the 
southern slopes of which are the remains, of the Imperial 
period, of great arcades. This has generally been attributed 
to the famous temple of Juno Sospita, from whose treasury, 
as from that of Diana, Octavian borrowed the money 
that he needed for the equipment of his fleet against 
Antony. This temple, however, has not yet been found : 
and the only sanctuary which has come to light on the 
acropolis is one with three cellae, resembling in plan the 
temple of Apollo at Veii; it is certainly not sufficiently 
ornate to be identified with a sanctuary of that character, 

1 For a detailed study see Colburn in American Journal of 
Archaeology, xviii. (1914) 18, 185, 363. 

199 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


and is probably the Capitolium, dedicated to Jupiter, 


Juno, and Minerva. It goes back to the fourth century — 
B.c.: but some of the architectural terra-cottas (many of — 


ee 


| 
7 


which are in the British Museum) go back to the fifth — 


century B.c. The landed property of the temple of 


Juno seems to have extended as far as the coast at Fog- 
liano, where a tile has been found with the words Sacro 
Lanuvio impressed upon it. 

Below the acropolis was the Roman town, on the site 
of which the picturesque mediaeval village, with its two 
gates and towers, was built. Remains of a temple of 
Hercules and the back of the stage wall of the theatre may 
still be traced, some of the seats of the latter having been 
found many years ago. From the lower end of the town 
an ancient road ran straight down the slopes and across 
the plain to the coast, and its pavement may still be 
traced through that desolate region and through the 
woods of Nettuno to Antium or Astura. 

A mile to the N. are the remains of a large villa, which 
tradition has connected with the Antonine Emperors, 
who are known to have possessed a country house here: 
and it is further confirmed by the discovery of portrait 
busts of them, which are now in the Capitoline Museum. 

Returning to S. Gennaro, we are some 5 or 6 miles 
from Velletri, the ancient Volscian Velitrae. The post- 
road which goes to the upper end of the town, rejoining 
the new route followed by the tram a little before it, 
may follow an ancient line: but there was certainly also 
a short cut, with several steep ascents and descents, to 
the lower end of it. Velletri stands on a large hill between 
two deep valleys, and the present town, though it has 
some 20,000 inhabitants, does not occupy the steep lower 
slopes of the hill. Of Roman buildings there are hardly 
any traces, except for a large building unearthed a few 
years ago near the railway station: but a series of painted 
terra-cottas from an early temple have recently been 
found in the town. A large villa to the W. of the town 
is by some authors believed to be that of the Gens Octavia, 
the family of Augustus, though the remains so far brought 
200 


THE VIA APPIA 


to light belong to a later date. But the lofty fourteenth- 
century campanile of the cathedral and a number of 
houses of the mediaeval period are of interest : though the 
once magnificent baroque Palazzo Ginnetti is now so 
sadly neglected as to look out of place in its surroundings. 
It has the merit, at least, of commanding an extraordinarily 
fine view over the fertile vineyard-clad lowlands to the 
limestone heights of the Volscian range in front, while 
behind the town rise the steep edges of the outer rim of 
the Alban crater, largely covered with woods and almost 
without a human habitation. Only a few paths lead up 
to the top of the ridge, and even fewer make the short, 
abrupt descent on the other side into the high-lying Valle 
Vivaro. And here, having made the complete circuit of 
the Alban Hills, we may leave them and begin our study 
of the low-lying region between them and the sea-coast, 
by setting forth once more from Rome by the Via Ardeatina. 


201 


III 


THE ROADS LEADING TO 
THE SEA-COAST 


Vill. THE VIA ARDEATINA, 
THE ROAD TO SATRICUM, 
AND THE VIA LAURENTINA 


1X. THE VIA OSTIENSIS (WITH THE 
VIA CAMPANA AND THE VIA 
PORTUENSIS) 


III 


PRELIMINARY NOTE 


Alban Hills and the sea-coast is very different 
from those which we have so far studied. It is 
at the present day very sparsely populated, largely owing 
to the scourge of malaria: and this was the case even 
in ancient times. Those who have read the Aeneid will 
probably picture it as enjoying a prosperity which never 
afterwards fell to its lot—mainly, I imagine, for this reason. 
The portion of it now traversed by the new railway to 
Naples is remarkable for its desolate loneliness, being | 
served by no modern highroad. The neighbourhood of 
the Via Ardeatina is one of the few districts in the Cam- 
pagna where fox-hunting can still be enjoyed ; while 
when we approach the coast and the large Royal park of 
Castel Porziano we find that these extensive forests were 
used for preserving game in Roman times, just as they 
are at present. The tombstone of a certain Tiberius 
Claudius Speculator, a freedman of the Emperor, records 
that he had been the administrator of the Imperial pro- 
perty at Formiae, Fondi, and Gaeta, and also of the Lauren- 
tine park, where the elephants were kept: and in 1906 
the excavations conducted by the Queen of Italy at the 
Vicus Augustanus Laurentium led to the discovery of 
another inscription, which records how the president of 
the guild of gamekeepers (saltuarii) had offered to the 
members a set of portraits of the Emperors, to be set 

up in an appropriate hall in the village. 
Of the cities so famous in the Aeneid, Ardea had come 
down to a mere shadow of its former self: while Lavinium, 
205 


Ts DISTRICT BETWEEN THE LOWER SLOPES of the 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


in its higher and healthier situation, still enjoyed a certain 
measure of prosperity. 

The coast, on the other hand, was healthy, and the 
nearer we come to the mouth of the Tiber, and conse- 
quently to Ostia and to Rome, the more plentiful are the 
remains of villas along the shore. At Ostia, the port of 
Rome, we come into a centre of busy life and trade: but 
even the hilly district along the Tiber valley on the left 
bank was not very thickly populated in Roman days, 
and on the hills of the right bank there are hardly any 
traces of ancient habitation. 


206 


VIilt 


THE VIA ARDEATINA, THE ROAD TO SATRI- 
CUM, AND THE VIA LAURENTINA ; 


HE VIA ARDEATINA AT PRESENT diverges to the 
right from the Via Appia at the church of Domine 

Z quo vadis ?, and I think we must suppose that it 
always did so. The name is therefore correct, even though 
it is quite impossible to get anywhere near Ardea by it, 
at present. It then ascended the hill and passed between 
the catacombs of S. Calixtus and those of Domitilla, 
which last are on the Via delle Sette Chiese, an old branch 
road connecting the Via Ostiensis and the Via Appia, 
and reaching the latter at San Sebastiano. This church 
was, strictly speaking, one of the seven basilicas which 
had to be visited during the Holy Year of Jubilee, though 
S. Maria del Popolo was substituted for it by Sixtus V 
owing to its distance. Our road, on the other hand, 
leads on to the church of the Annunziatella, which made 
the ninth pilgrimage church. It presents no particular 
features of interest until well beyond this church, which 
lies a little off on the right: for nothing is now to be 
_ seen of the ancient villas in the tenuta (farm) of Tor 
Marancia, which produced so many works of art in the 
- excavations of 1817-23 that a large folio volume was 
devoted to illustrating them. The most important are 
a number of paintings depicting the mythical heroines of 
amorous adventures of antiquity, which are in the Vatican 
Library, while several of the mosaics now decorate the 
floor of the Braccio Nuovo. 

At the sixth kilometre from Rome the road forks, and 
both branches are ancient: the left-hand one, which is 
followed by the modern road to Castel di Leva and thence 
. 207 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


to Falcognana and Frattocchie, is really the first portion 
of the road to Satricum: while on the right hand is the 
Via Ardeatina proper. We may first speak briefly of the 
former, as it ran along the lower ground below the Alban 
Hills, not far from the new railway to Naples, which keeps 
more or less parallel to it. It therefore crosses a large 
number of streams descending from the lower slopes of the 
crater, but in most cases before they have had time to 
become formidable obstacles: so that it followed a fairly 
easy line, and no engineering works of importance were 
required. 

Remains of antiquity are comparatively few, and in 
this regard there is a contrast to the district adjacent to 
the Via Appia. There is really nothing worthy of parti- 
cular notice, except for a road going off near the eighth 
kilometre to Zolforata, until we reach Castel di Leva. 
Here is a mediaeval castle on a hill, with the small church 
of the Madonna del Divino Amore, celebrated for the 
festival which takes place here on the first Sunday in May, 
when numerous carriages decorated with flowers drive 
out from Rome and Albano, and there is much merry- 
making. The road is practicable for carriages as far as 
Falcognana (there are two farmhouses of the name, one 
on each side of the road). 

Beyond this the straight road becomes a track, but — 
there are continual traces of antiquity—pavement and 
cuttings through the hills. It is intersected by various 
roads leading from the Alban Hills to the coast, and 
finally, after passing through Campomorto (which is 
quite in the low ground, and was till lately most unhealthy), 
reaches Satricum. The site of this ancient Latin city, 
several times won and lost by the Romans—for it was on 
the boundary of the Volscian territory—is to be fixed 
on the low hill, surrounded by tufa cliffs, with scanty 
remains of defensive walls in the same material, which is 
now occupied by the farmhouse of Conca and was a 
regular citadel in this flat district, once desolate and un- 
healthy, but now fast coming under cultivation. 

A mile to the W. an archaic temple, with fine terra- 
208 


THE VIA ARDEATINA AND VIA LAURENTINA 


cottas of the seventh or sixth century B.c. (now in the 
Museo di Villa Giulia), was found in 1896, and is supposed 
to be that of Mater Matuta, from a fragmentary inscription. 

Tombs, remains of buildings, etc., were also found, and 
the desolate woods were once occupied by a city which 
was able to boast of a sanctuary decorated with the finest 
products of Greek art. We are only 5 or 6 miles from the 
sea-coast at Nettuno, from which the place is most easily 
accessible, and about the same distance from Cisterna, 
on the edge of the large Sermoneta estate. The other 
roads leading down towards the coast do not carry us 
nearly so far afield, and may be briefly dismissed. 

We left the Via Ardeatina at the sixth kilometre. 
From there it continues to run due S., passing E. of the 
large farmhouse of Cecchignola, with its lofty water-tower. 
Its course is marked by pavement, tombs, and cuttings 
through the hills: for it cuts across numerous small 
tributaries of the Tiber. 

The modern road to Ardea (called Via Laurentina) 
falls into it about 14 kilometres from Rome: and after 
traversing some very desolate undulating country it 
passes KE. of the farmhouse of Zolforata or Solfatara. 
Close to this are sulphur springs, and here is to be sought 
the Albunea of the seventh book of the Aenezd, to whose 
grove King Latinus went to consult Faunus, and not 
at Tivoli, where the water of the Anio is not sulphurous. 
_ Here was an important road centre in old days, and the 
branch hence to Lavinium, which is still in use, is prob- 
ably of ancient origin. But there are two other roads from 
Rome which lead more directly to Lavinium, further still 
‘to the W. 

A controversy which has long vexed the souls of men 
is in regard to the correct nomenclature of this whole 
group of roads; but much of the difficulty disappears if 
we are willing, as I think we must be, to accept M. Carco- 
pino’s demonstration in a recent work (Virgile et les 
Origines d’Ostie, Paris, 1919), that there never was any 
such place as Laurentum (which does not appear by name 
in the Aeneid), and that Lavinium, the home of Latinus, 

fe) 209 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


is the city of the Laurentes. This city, which in Imperial 
days bore the name of Lauro-Lavinium, as inscriptions 
show, occupied the site of the modern Pratica di Mare, 
which will be described below. It satisfies Vergil’s de- 
scription of the military operations which occurred in its 
neighbourhood, while it is the only site between Ardea 
and Ostia which would satisfy the requirements of an 
ancient city. 

We thus get rid of the distinction between the Via 
Lavinas or Lavinatis (a modern name for the road leading 
to Lavinium) and the Via Laurentina, the only road of 
which we hear in ancient authors: and we only have two 
comparatively small difficulties to solve—the existence 
of two roads leading to the same place. One of them 
issued from the small gate in the Aurelian wall which 
Antonio da San Gallo destroyed to make his bastion, 
crossed the Almo by a separate bridge a few hundred 
yards W. of the Via Appia, and led into the modern road 
to Ardea, near the Torre d’Archetto, leaving it again at 
Pizzo Prete and going on by Trigoria and Castel Romano ; 
while the other diverged from the Via Ostiensis at Vicus 
Alexandri, and ran on by Decimo and Capocotta. The 
first of these is called by Lanciani! (who takes it to Tor 
Paterno) the Via Laurentina, the second the Via Lavinatis 
—the reason being that an inscription mentions a certain 
Diadumenus as contractor for the Via Ardeatina and the 
Via Laurentina, so that they must have been close together. 
But let us take Pliny’s description of his villa?: ‘‘ There 
is more than one way to get to it: for both the Via Ostien- 
sis and the Via Laurentina lead there: but you must 
turn off from the former at the eleventh mile and from 
the latter at the fourteenth ’’; and we shall find that it 
suits the second road and not the first. The best way 
out of our difficulty is to suppose that, as in so many cases, 
one road was called the Laurentina vetus and the other 
the Laurentina nova; and, though we may not be able 
to determine with certainty the relative date of the two, 
we can probably say that the first road is the earlier, 

1 Mon. Lincei, xiii. 183 ; xvi. 241. 2 Epist. ii. 17, 2. 
210 


THE VIA ARDEATINA AND VIA LAURENTINA. 


and the second, with its milestones of Tiberius and Maxen- 
tius, the later. There is no necessity to suppose (though 
it may have been the case) that the vetus, however, ceased 
to be called Laurentina: and the fact that the two roads 
are never more than a couple of miles apart until they join 
just outside Lavinium, and are connected by three cross- 
roads at least, renders it unnecessary to suppose that the 
contractor who looked after the repairs of the Via Ardea- 
tina could not have attended to both of them. 

Having reached the coast-line, it will be best to de- 
scribe it as a whole from the Tiber to Monte Circeo. Leav- 
ing Ostia aside for the moment, we may follow the line 
of the Via Severiana, which ran along the coast, behind 
the almost uninterrupted line of Roman villas which faced 
upon the sea for several miles S.E. of the Tiber mouth. 
The coast-line has advanced considerably, and the ruins 
of these once splendid residences lie concealed under the 
sand, and are hidden from the sea by lofty dunes of com- 
paratively recent formation. The whole coast-line beyond 
Castel Fusano belongs to the King of Italy, and as game 
is preserved in the forests, the solitude, in contrast to 
the gay life which once prevailed here, is almost oppressive. 
Pliny’s own Laurentine villa has not yet been excavated 
with care, though trial pits have been made between the 
great oaks which cover its ruins, and further excavation 
would be necessary before it would be possible to see how 
far the remains correspond with the elaborate description 
which he gives of it in one of his letters. 

But the remains of the village (the Vicus Augustanus 
Laurentium) which lay next but one to it have been in 
considerable measure cleared, and the mosaic pavement 
which has been laid in one of the cloisters of the Museo 
delle Terme in Rome was found here in the ruins of some 
baths: while in another villa there was found the fine 
replica of the famous Discobolus (or discus-thrower) of 
the Greek sculptor Myron, which was also presented to 
the same museum by the Queen. 

Further along the larger trees disappear, and the sand 
dunes become more apparent, while the scrub becomes 

211 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


thicker. Even in Roman times the district cannot have 
been very different from what it is now, for the Imperial 
elephants were kept in it. We soon reach Tor Paterno, 
a farmhouse built into the remains of a large villa, perhaps 
also Imperial property. Here most archaeologists have 
placed the ancient Laurentum: but personally I find 
M. Carcopino’s demonstration that it never existed to 
be quite convincing, and the site never seemed satis- 
factory, to my mind, for an ancient city. 

The earth brought down by the Tiber is not deposited 
any further along the coast than this, and the ancient 
coast-line is thus practically identical with the modern: 
but it still continues to be low and desolate, and there 
are very few traces of ancient buildings until we reach 
Antium. Not long after leaving the Royal property we 
see on the left, over 2 miles away and about 300 feet above 
the sea, the village of Pratica di Mare. It occupies a 
very strong site, high enough up to be healthy: it is 
almost entirely isolated by ravines (Fig. 33), and is 
thus eminently suited for the ancient city of Lavinium, 
the home of Latinus, whose daughter Lavinia Aeneas 
married. Various inscriptions of the Imperial period 
mentioning the Lauro-Lavinates have been found here: 
and a certain number of archaic objects point to its habi- 
tation in earlier days, as the tradition tells us. 

From Pratica we can look S.E. towards Ardea, which 
lies less than 6 miles away—the capital of Turnus, King 
of the Rutuli, the adversary of Aeneas. It stands on a 
naturally strong position on an almost isolated rock 
(Fig. 34), and its artificial fortifications consisted of a 
massive stone wall on the N.E. (Fig. 35) where alone it is 
connected with a long ridge running up towards the road 
to Satricum, which is reinforced by outworks—two massive 
mounds and ditches—at a considerable distance away from 
the city, protecting the approach to it. The reed huts 
of the miserable modern village may give us an idea of 
those of antiquity. Tombs and dwellings were also cut 
in the rocky sides of the neighbouring ravines. 

The desolation of this immense expanse of country 
212 


33. LAVINIUM (THE MODERN PRATICA) (p. 212). 


a 


34. ARDEA (p. 212). 


To face p. 212. 


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30. COAST AT ANZIO (p. 213): 


To face p, 213, 


THE VIA ARDEATINA AND VIA LAURENTINA 


reaches perhaps its climax in the neighbourhood of Ardea, - 
especially to the S. of it; but on a fine day the fresh sea 
air and the beauty of the woods render the scene very 
attractive ; and in many cases they are beginning to give 
place to pasture or cultivation. 

The shore grows somewhat higher as we approach 
Antium, the modern Anzio, which we reach at the end of 
a line of sandy cliffs. The old Volscian town, which lay — 
a little inland, on a site defended by deep ditches, was once 
the foe of Rome: and in one of her first naval battles 
Rome took the beaks (rostra) from the prows of the con- 
quered ships of Antium and used them to decorate the 
front of the orators’ tribune on the edge of the Comitium. 

In Roman days the whole shore of the bay was covered 
with seaside residences (Fig. 86), one of which belonged 
to Nero: and in it was found that much-discussed statue, 
the so-called ‘‘ Fanciulla d’Anzio,”” which probably repre- 
sents a boy-priest of Apollo. 

Here, too, was a famous temple of Venus, mentioned 
by Horace. The picturesque fishing village of Nettuno, 
with its castle, lies in the bay, at the other side of which is 
the lonely tower of Astura, in which Conradin of Swabia 
was treacherously murdered in 1268. It is built on an 
enormous Roman villa, now half submerged, with a tiny 
harbour of its own—not, probably, that of Cicero, who 
owned a favourite villa here, to which he withdrew after 
the death of his daughter, Tullia. Even in Roman days 
it was none too healthy, and both Augustus and Tiberius 
are said to have contracted here the illnesses of which they 
eventually died: while Ardea must have been even more 
subject to the scourge; et nunc magnum manet Ardea 
nomen ; sed fortuna fuit, as Vergil says. 

From Astura a single sweep of low sandy coast, with 
lagoons inland of it, runs to the foot of Monte Circeo, 
which, as one approaches it, dominates the whole land- 
scape. Inland is the vast expanse of the Sermoneta 
property, mostly forest and pasture, which takes us right 
up to the Pomptine Marshes and the Via Appia. 


213 


IX 


THE VIA OSTIENSIS, ETC. 


Rome by the gate now known as Porta S. Paolo, 

close to the Pyramid of Cestius and the cemetery 
where Keats and Shelley lie. It follows the valley of 
the Tiber for the first half of its course, then crosses a 
chain of hills, and then descends to the low ground where 
Ostia stands. The modern road, until recent improve- 
ments, coincided with it closely, and considerable traces 
of it were to be seen: while the last half was more like 
an English lane than many of the other roads out of 
Rome, being shaded with trees. A few of the small 
bridges still retain traces of antiquity; but there were 
not many ancient buildings of any particular importance 
along its course, though the deep cuttings recently made, 
first for the road itself, and then for the electric railway, 
have brought a few remains to light. We may note 
“especially the aqueduct which brought water from springs 
in the hills to Ostia: its low arches were still fairly well 
preserved in the sixteenth century, but have now completely 
disappeared. 

The salt marshes which surrounded Ostia itself until 
recent days have now been drained and cultivated, and, 
like the whole of the coast strip, this flat expanse has been 
made habitable by the discovery of the true cause of 
malaria. The decisive experiments were, indeed, made 
about a quarter of a century ago at Castel Fusano, in 
the immediate neighbourhood. 

The most prominent building in our view of Ostia is 
the fine Renaissance castle (Fig. 37) built in 1483-6 
by Baccio Pontelli for Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, 
214 . 


Te: ROAD TO OSTIA leaves the Aurelian walls of 


37. CASTLE, OSTIA (p. 214). 


38. PALAESTRA OF BATHS, OSTIA (p. 216). 


x 


To face p. 214. 


a 


THE VIA OSTIENSIS, ETC. 


nephew of Sixtus IV, and afterwards himself Pope under 
the title of Julius II. It was placed so as to command a 
bend of the Tiber, which, however, in the great flood of 
1557 completely changed its course, and now runs nearly 
half a mile distant from it. Only just beyond it lies the 
entrance to the excavations, which have made great 
progress during the last few years and are still being 
continued. 

Ostia was the port of Rome: and what we see before 
us are the ruins of a great commercial city. Though 
tradition alleges that it was founded by Ancus Martius, 
which would make it the oldest of Rome’s colonies, there 
is no real evidence for the existence of any permanent 
habitation on the site of Ostia before the fourth cen- 
tury B.c. How much earlier the salt marshes at the mouth 
of the Tiber existed is quite another question, but in 
any case Ostia is not mentioned as a port until late in 
the third century B.c., in the history of the second Punic 
Wars. 

The first settlement was a small rectangular fort; but 
by the first century B.c. it had expanded very consider- 
ably, as is shown by the line of its walls, which has recently 
been traced. The road from Rome ran right through the 
town and served as the main street: and, before the 
flood of 1557, the river ran more or less parallel to it. 
The side-streets were therefore laid out at right angles to 
them both, especially in the northern part of the town. 
As we come nearer to the coast, we find that the main 
road turned to the left and approached it at right angles. 
_ The excavations are of very great interest and impor- 
tance, and only a brief description of them can be given 
here.* 

Of the original fort and the Republican city some 
remains have been incorporated into later buildings: 
and it is an interesting conjecture that Vergil’s description 
of the castle founded by Aeneas at the mouth of the Tiber 
was inspired by what was still visible of the remains of 
the fort. There was apparently a reconstruction in the 


1 See Calza’s Ostia, translated by R. Weeden-Cooke. 
215 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES — 


time of Augustus and Tiberius, to which, among other 
buildings, the original theatre is due. We must place 
rather later than this some baths with a fine mosaic 
pavement, which were afterwards entirely razed to the 
ground, a street being built over them; while the new 
thermae were constructed by Hadrian and his successors 
on an adjacent site. They are remarkable for a number 
of fine mosaic pavements, attributable to the Antonine 
period, in which, as is natural, marine deities and monsters 
predominate; and also for the abnormality of their plan, 
the palaestra (Fig. 88) taking up a considerably larger 
part of the building than is usual in such establishments. 
Some very interesting mosaics may also be seen in the 
colonnades behind the theatre; they surround a temple, 
which has been thought to be that of Ceres, the goddess 
of the crops; for here were the offices of many of the 
trading corporations concerned with the importation of 
grain, which was, of course, one of the most important 
functions of Ostia. 

But the most imposing temple of all is that which has 
generally been called the temple of Vulcan, but which 
is now considered to be the Capitolium—the temple of 
Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva—which was not lacking in any 
Roman colony. It may be, like the theatre in its present 
form, a reconstruction of the time of Septimius Severus 
and Caracalla; for the foundations of the original Capi- 
tolium have been recognised elsewhere. It stands on the 
right of the main street, at the top of a lofty flight of 
steps (Fig. 39), and faces on to the Forum, in the centre 
of which stood the temple of Rome and Augustus, un- 
luckily much destroyed by quarrying for building material 
in the Middle Ages. Ostia was indeed ransacked for 
material for the building of the cathedrals of Orvieto 
and Pisa; and some of its buildings have suffered 
considerably, while others have not been nearly so badly 
treated. 

But the most extensive part of the town was devoted 
to storehouses and private dwellings. In the former the 
store-chambers themselves are generally grouped round 
216 


ne a ee 


39. CAPITOLIUM AND DECUMANUS, OSTIA (p. 216) 


40, RIVER NUMICUS (p. 217). 


To face p. 216. 


\h 


u 


THE VIA OSTIENSIS, ETC, 


a courtyard, in two stories or even more ; but they display 
considerable variety in their plan. The houses are remark- 
able for their surprising modernity. They are not in 
the least like the type of house with which Pompeii has 
familiarised us; there are hardly any which have an 
atrium: and light is generally derived from numerous 
windows opening either on to the street or on to a 
garden or courtyard. In the latter case the similarity to a 
Renaissance house in Rome is surprising. Their internal 
arrangements are equally different from what we have 
been accustomed to: they are divided into tenements 
which are quite independent of one another, and are 
separately approached from below, the plan being often 
quite identical for three or four floors. External balconies 
are almost universal, and the warm red brickwork with 
which the walls are faced, and which is now, especially 
in the evening light, so pleasing to the eye, was probably 
not faced with plaster, but left exposed to view, the tiled 
arches being picked out in a darker red. 

Outside the city the roads were flanked with tombs— 
many of them columbaria, with niches for urns like those 
of a dovecot—whence comes the name. Some of the 
most interesting have been found on the Via Severiana, 
which led to the S.E. It soon crossed a stream which may 
very likely be the Numicus (Fig. 40), in which Aeneas 
was drowned (though this is more generally identified 
with the Incastro, which flows past Ardea), which forms 
the boundary of the lovely pine forests of Castel Fusano 
(Fig. 41). Here its pavement has been discovered in the 
woods.. Its further course along the coast has already 
been described. | 

At Ostia there were always two difficulties to contend 
against—the dangerous southerly winds which blew into 
the mouth of the river, and the silting up brought about 
by the enormous amount of solid matter brought down 
by the Tiber—and the combination of the two proved 
fatal to the new harbour which Claudius built on the right 
bank of the river, 24 miles to the N. of the mouth. He 
connected it with the open sea by a large opening with 

217 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES ' 


a lighthouse on a breakwater in the centre, and with the - 


river by a canal. 


Trajan built a large hexagonal basin between the har- 
bour of Claudius and the sea, with which he connected — 
his own part by a new canal, which is still called Fossa ~ 
Traiana and serves for navigation by small craft. The — 
new harbour, known as Portus, was, however, adminis- © 


tratively dependent on Ostia until the time of Constantine, 


who placed it directly under the city of Rome, and gave © 


it, apparently, greater importance than Ostia. 


The basin of Trajan has recently been cleared, and is 


used as a reservoir for the irrigation of the land to the 


N. of it: but the extensive warehouses which surrounded 
it, and the docks which lie near it, are still half hidden ~ 


under vegetation, and it is only to be hoped that they may 
one day be excavated with care and left visible. 


is ati 


For here we have one of the finest examples of an i 


ancient harbour in existence, which, despite the spoliation 


which it has undergone, is still probably in a relatively — 


good state of preservation. The harbour was defended 


by a wall, the creation of which is attributed to Constantine, — 


though the gateway, called the Arco di Nostra Donna, may 


possibly have been erected by Trajan in the first instance © 


(Fig. 42). 


To the E. is an isolated building in brick—it is circular, — 


and the interior is decorated with niches; the dome is 
interesting as having radiating ribs projecting from the 
face of the vault; while another feature is an external 
balcony, carried on arches resting on brackets, like those 
of Ostia. It is called the temple of Portunus, but without 
real warrant: and probably belongs to the middle of the 
third century 4.pD. (Fig. 43). 


Claudius’s harbour, on the other hand, lies in the middle © 
of the plain, and its outline can barely be traced, as its © 


breakwaters are covered with the accumulation of earth. 
The coast-line has advanced at least a mile and a half 
on the N. side of the river-mouth also, though the dis- 
tance gradually diminishes as we go up the coast. The 
Roman shore-line can be traced clearly here also: but 
218 


42. ARCO DI NOSTRA DONNA, PORTO (p. 218). 


To face p. 218. 


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44. FLOODS NEAR PONTE GALERA (p. 219). 


To face p, 219, 


THE VIA OSTIENSIS, ETC. 


this district was far less in favour with them than the 
_ neighbourhood of Lavinium, and there are very few villas 
indeed for a long distance, though there are undoubted 
_ indications of the existence of the coast road. 

_ The lovely pinewoods of Maccarese (the ancient Fre- 
 genae, situated on the Arrone, the stream which issues 
' from the Lake of Bracciano) and a few solitary towers are 
almost all that breaks the monotony of the flat sandy 
shore until we reach the neighbourhood of Palo, the ancient 
Alsium, where the Via Aurelia comes down to the coast. 

A road was constructed from Rome on the right bank 
of the Tiber, for the service of this harbour of Claudius, 
starting from the Pons Aemilius. Not far outside the 
Porta Portuensis of the wall of Aurelian (a double gate 
destroyed in 1643), it diverged to the right into hilly 
country from a far older road, the Via Campana, so called 
because it led past the sanctuary of the Arval Brethren 
(an old priesthood revived under the Empire, whose records, 
inscribed on slabs of marble, are preserved to us in part) 
to the Campus Salinarum Romanarum, the salt marshes 
on the right bank of the Tiber, which were probably in 
existence before those on the left bank. This last inference 
is based on the fact that the roads which approach Rome 
from the N. and N.E. (and especially the “‘ saltway,” the 
Via Salaria) are making for the crossing over the river, 
which may have existed just below the island before 
Rome became a city at all: and this they would not 
have done had the salt marshes of Ostia on the left bank 
been those principally in use. 

There are practically no remains of antiquity and very 
few features of interest to be seen on either road. The 
two rejoin at Ponte Galera, where the mouth of the Tiber 
was situated in remote days, before it had begun to extend 
the coast-line by the earth it brings down : and a return 
to this early state of things sometimes occurs (as in the 
flood of 1915) when the river bursts its dykes and over- 
‘flows the whole of the low country. It then becomes 
clear that the low hills, at the foot of which the railway 
to Pisa and Genoa runs, were once the coast-line (Fig. 44). 

219 


IV 


THE ROADS LEADING 
INTO ETRURIA 


X. THE VIA AURELIA 


XI. THE VIA CLODIA AND THE 
VLA CASSIA 


IV 


PRELIMINARY NOTE 


Veii, which later became the Via Clodia, originally 

started from the Pons Sublicius and ran along the 
right bank of the Tiber for some way, until it left the river 
valley at the same point where it did in later days. For 
we have unmistakable traces of a road diverging from 
the Via Clodia on the right at the sixth mile and going 
direct to Veii; while there are grounds for supposing 
the existence of the Via Clodia as early as the end of the 
fourth century 8.c., but it is difficult to suppose the exist- 
ence of a bridge on the site of the Pons Mulvius at so early 
a date. On the other hand, it would also be possible to 
suppose that the original road to Veii was that which was 
later called (for reasons that we do not know) the Via 
Triumphalis ; and this would certainly give us a better 
line out of Rome. The discovery near the railway station 
of S. Onofrio, behind Monte Mario, of a Bronze Age settle- 
ment (pre-Etruscan, of course, though it was afterwards 
occupied by that people and the site was in use even in 
Roman days) is, I think, a sufficient ground to modify 
the opinion which I have previously expressed, that an 
early date for the Via Triumphalis is improbable: though 
what was the political or historical relation of this settle- 
ment to Rome or to Veii we do not know. 

The distances along both the Via Clodia and the Via 
Cassia were reckoned, like those along the Via Flaminia, 
from the Porta Ratumena of the Servian wall; while the 
Via Cassia, though it afterwards became the more important 
road of the two, did not, strictly speaking, begin its inde- 
pendent existence until the eleventh mile from Rome. 

223 


if IS QUITE POSSIBLE that the first Roman road to 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


It must have existed in some form about 217 B.c., but 
was probably not constructed in its permanent form as a 
highway until about 187 B.c., and Florentia (Florence), 
at which the road ended, was very likely founded at the 
same time. 

The other road which led from Rome into Etruscan 
territory, the Via Aurelia, crossed the river at once and 
led through the fortifications of the Janiculum over 
undulating country to the coast, which it only reached at 
about 20 miles from Rome. Its construction is attribu- 
table to about 175 B.c. | 

With the exception of Veii, which lost its importance 
when it became subject to Rome, we may notice the almost 


entire lack of centres of population in all this district : 
otherwise the little crater lake, E. of the Lake of Bracciano, 


now known as the Lago di Martignano, would not have 
been assigned to the territory of Alsium, down on the 
coast 20 miles away. 

The hills above the right bank of the Tiber are of marine 
formation—oyster shells, for example, may be met with 
in quantities on Monte Mario; and the vegetation is 
characteristic of the sea-coast. But we soon get into a 


region where these strata are overlaid by volcanic rock, 


the main crater being that occupied by the Lake of Brac- 


ciano. This district is furrowed with ravines, and is 
difficult to traverse with ease or rapidity. It was, there- 


fore, sparsely inhabited even in Roman days: so the 
conclusion that much of it was thickly wooded is an- 


eminently probable one; for the cross-roads, though not 
very frequent, are still out of proportion to the scanty 


traces of habitation with which we meet. The desolation 


of mediaeval and modern days is even greater; but the 


high ground in the immediate neighbourhood of Rome, 


with its fine views of the sea and the hills, has recently 
begun to come into favour: and the transformation which 
we have seen at work in the Campagna will probably 
extend over this region as well in course of time. 


224 


' 
‘ 


xX 


THE VIA AURELIA 


crossing of the Tiber to the culmination of the 
fortified téte de pont on the heights of the Janiculum, 
where Aurelian later on placed his Porta Aurelia, close 
to where the American Academy in Rome now stands. 
Leaving the entrance to the lovely Villa Doria Pamphili 
on the left, it passes along its boundary wall, in which 
the opus reticulatum and brick of Trajan’s aqueduct may 
still be seen. It runs on as a narrow, shady road between 
walls and trees for nearly 3 miles, being about the only 
highroad out of Rome which has preserved the quiet 
and secluded appearance which all of them had some 
thirty or forty years ago. Several narrower lanes branch 
off it to the right and left. One of these goes off due N. 
to the Via Triumphalis and is followed by the aqueduct. 
It passes close to the pinewood known as the Pigneto 
Sacchetti, a prominent feature on the skyline to the left 
of Monte Mario: the tops of the trees are so close together 
that they present the appearance of a line of arches. 
Below is the Valle dell’ Inferno, largely formed by digging 
for brick-earth in Roman days, and still the site of many 
brick-fields, which continually encroach on its cork woods, 
the nearest to the city. In it lie the scanty ruins of a 
villa designed by Pietro da Cortona for the Sacchetti 
family in the seventeenth century, which appears to have 
collapsed owing to the insecurity of its foundations. 
Three miles out, the Via Aurelia Vetus is joined by the 
Via Aurelia Nova. This probably ascended to the Janicu- 
lum just S.E. of the Porta S. Spirito, crossed it at once, 
and then redescended to the neighbourhood of the Porta 
3 225 


sk VIA AURELIA VETUS climbed the hill from the 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


Cavalleggieri. Thence it climbed the hill behind the 
Vatican, and so reached the main road. 

The Via Cornelia, on the other hand, upon which the 
tomb of S. Peter lay, came from the Pons Aelius (Ponte S. 
Angelo) along the N. side of the Circus of Caligula, so 
that S. Peter’s is built uponitsaxis. Itthen ran on through 
the Vatican gardens out of the Porta Pertusa of the Leonine 
wall, and perhaps rejoined the Aurelia Nova a little further 
on. They soon separated, however, and the Via Cor- 
nelia turns to run westward, to the S. of the modern 
road, passing by frequent cuttings through undulating 
country for a few miles, and then completely disappears, 
so that its course is quite uncertain. On the modern road ~ 
we may note the modern chapel of S. Rufina at the eighth — 
mile from Rome (though the site of the old episcopal © 
see, that of Silva Candida, was half a mile away, at Porca- — 
reccina) and the large farm of Boccea further to the N., — 
where the road turns W. to the lonely farm of Tragliata, — 
in the middle of a district furrowed deeply by streams ~ 
running southward through large ravines, difficult off 
access, and sparsely populated even in ancient times. 
The only satisfactory way to explore it (and it will well 
repay those who care to do so) is on foot, starting 
from the Viterbo railway, which keeps close to the Viag 
Clodia, and coming down to the coast railway for an~ 
evening train. ! 

The Via Aurelia crosses the streams rather lower down, - : 
when their number has considerably diminished: but 
even it has a good many ups and downs, attenuated to — 
some extent by cuttings through the hills. None of its 
paving is actually in situ, though plenty of paving-stones 
are to be seen. | 

Before the eighth modern mile we cross the stream 
known as the Galera, one of the largest of them, at a 
place called Malagrotta. There is a picturesque jegendl 
of a cave inhabited by a dragon or a serpent: but the 
prosaic truth is that the name is a corruption of Mola | 
rupta (broken mill), which can be found as far back as 


the tenth century, and was no doubt destroyed by a ious 
226 


; 
M4 
j 
E 
4 


Pe 
ee ae 


AD 


THE VIA AURELIA 


Here a track, of ancient origin, goes off to Maccarese, which 
may be the enigmatic Via Vitellia; though the descrip- 
tion of it given by Suetonius “* from the Janiculum to the 
sea ’’ does not fit any road that I have been able to find ; 
and it is just possible that it is really the same as the 
Via Portuensis, which is not mentioned under that name 
until the fourth century (Suet., Vatell. 1). 

The ancient Via Aurelia ascended to the N.W., and is 
not rejoined by the modern road until the top of the hill. 
At the twelfth ancient milestone lay the post-station of 
Lorium, near the site of an Imperial villa, which was the 
favourite resort of Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. 
Excavations made in 1824 led to the discovery of some 
remains of the villa, with inscriptions and works of art. 
A bishop seems to have had his see here in 487: but 
the village was abandoned after the damage which it 
suffered in the Gothic wars. 

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the place 
had’ become so unhealthy that Eschinardi notes that a 
carriage was always kept ready there by Prince Doria, to 
whom the farm belonged, to carry the sick into hospital. 

There are a few other ancient buildings, but the dis- 
trict was thinly inhabited, and there is nothing of special 
interest until we reach the two-arched bridge over the 
Arrone, which still shows traces of antiquity. From 
here a road may have led northward to the Via Cornelia. 

Some way further on to the W. is the large and pic- 
turesque group of farmhouses known as Torrimpietra: 
a certain number of antique sculptures and a large number 
of paving-stones are to be seen here, but it is doubtful 
where they were found. 

A couple of miles further on we cross another stream, 
the Fosso di Palidoro, which has changed its course, for 
the large farmhouse on the W. of it, which gives its name 
both to the stream and to a station on the main line 
(which we have now reached), is built upon an ancient 
two-arched bridge of large blocks of limestone which has 
been high and dry for centuries. The name Palidoro is 


derived from Paritorum, which refers to a large tomb 
. 227 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES — 


faced with marble which must once have stood here and ~ 
can be traced as far back as 1018. 3 

From Palidoro a path leads northward to the ruins 
of the large mediaeval castle called Castel Campanile, on 
a most remarkable site—a long, narrow peninsula of rock 
between two deep, wooded valleys. It has been identified — 
with Artena in the territory of Caere, but I have never ~ 
been able to see any trace of anything earlier than the ~ 
mediaeval period, except a pagan sepulchral inscription on — 
a block of marble, with a draped figure in a shell niche — 
in very high relief, the provenance of which I do not ~ 
know. 

There is also an altar from the mediaeval church, ~ 
which was dedicated, as the inscription records, in the year ~ 
1000. Mi 

About 2 miles from Palidoro is another ancient bridge, — 
and beyond it a small mediaeval castle on a mound, © 
which perhaps marks the site of the post-station of Ad — 
Turres. Here a road diverged to the N.W., and led 
straight to Caere, the modern Cerveteri (with a branch to © 
Ceri—see below), while another led due N., rising gradually. 

In a prominent position on high ground, commanding © 
a fine view of the coast, is a large white farmhouse known ~ 
as the Casalone; and near it are the remains of a large 
Roman villa, showing that the site was appreciated in 
those days. To the N. of this the modern path, which — 
has so far followed the ancient line, divides into various — 
branches. Here we are close to the little village of Ceri, — 
which under the name of Caere Nova was founded about — 
the beginning of the thirteenth century. 

The Via Aurelia ran on straight for another mile, ae 
then turned to run N.W., parallel to the coast, keeping 
at a certain distance from it, and passing a line of mounds ~ 
called the Monteroni, which are partly natural and partly — 
artificial twmuli of Etruscan tombs. The modern road 
follows what are probably old: branch roads along two 
sides of a triangle, in order to run into the little village 
of Palo and out again. Here there are a few villas along 
the shore (one of them is very large, with five porticos, 
228 


Mag OY 


Se ee ee 


THE VIA AURELIA 


a large courtyard, and several gardens: it was excavated 
in 1866, but is now covered with sand), for here was the 
site of Alsium, one of the oldest cities of Etruria. As 
such it was not of any importance, except as one of the 
harbours of Caere, Pyrgi (now S. Severa) being the other ? : 
though in Roman times, owing to the lack of other towns 
in all this district, its territory was very extensive, while 
Pompey and Caesar both had villas there, and it was also 
in great favour in the second century: we hear of the 
Younger Pliny’s friend finding here a “nest for his old 
age”; Fronto, the tutor of Marcus Aurelius and (Ep. vi. 
10) Lucius Verus, enjoyed here the pleasures of the sea- 
side, and actually wrote a short work about his holidays 
in Alsium ; and the former also owned a villa here. 

The villas continue to the W. of Palo also, where the 
modern bathing place of Ladispoli has recently grown 
up, to replace the village of Palo, which has been allowed 
to fall into ruin, only the fine castle of the Odescalchi 
family remaining. Close to it are foundations, now pro- 
jecting into the sea, which belong to a villa rather than a 
harbour, as they have no opening seaward. 

From Alsium there must have been a direct road to 
Caere, and this is represented by the modern highroad 
from Palo to Tre Ponti, where it rejoins the old Via 
Aurelia, and by a track going due N. from this point 
to ‘the town of Cerveteri. This, with its picturesque 
mediaeval castle, occupies the site of the citadel of the 
ancient town of Caere. We are told by ancient writers 
that its old Pelasgian name was Agylla. It was one of 
the twelve cities of Etruria, and the Tarquins took refuge 
here after their expulsion. We know of its greatness and 
power chiefly from the magnificence of its tombs: for of 
its buildings little or nothing remains. 

After the invasion of the Gauls in 390 B.c. the Vestal 
Virgins were conveyed here for safety ; and some ancient 
authorities derive the word “‘ ceremony” from this fact. 
In 353 Caere took up arms against Rome, but was defeated, 


1 It is interesting to notice that both these names are derived 
from Greek words—dAc (salt) and mdpyor (towers). 
229 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


and was therefore admitted to a limited form of Roman 
citizenship, without any internal autonomy. Its pros- 
perity, which had decayed considerably, was restored under 
Augustus or Tiberius, and in its theatre a number of 


inscriptions and statues of Emperors were found which — 
may have decorated the wall of the stage. They now — 
occupy a room in the Lateran Museum. Nothing is — 
now to be seen of this building, and in the whole area of — 
the city we can only trace a few remains of road pavement 
in the modern paths through the vineyards which cover — 
the site. The city walls in rectangular blocks of tufa — 
can be traced along the top of the cliffs on the inner — 


edge of the (artificial) fosse, by which the defences are 


strengthened in places, for a length of about 4 miles, — 


and there appear to have been eight gates in the circuit. 


To the N.W. is the hill known as the Banditaccia, where ~ 


the principal necropolis is situated—though there are also 


a number of outlying tombs. The tomb chambers are — 
either hewn in the rock or covered by large round mounds, ~ 
and they are interesting, some for their architectural — 
and decorative details (which are reproduced in the — 
natural rock), others from the fine objects (vases, etc.) © 
discovered in them; and though full details of these — 


found in the recent Government excavations are not yet 
available, a great deal that is of interest can be seen on 
the spot. The most important tomb of all, the so-called 
Regulini-Galassi tomb, lies to the S.W. of Cerveteri; the 
objects found in it (a chariot, a bed, silver goblets with 


reliefs, splendid gold ornaments, etc.) belong to about — 
650 B.c., and form one of the chief treasures of the Etruscan — 


as kanae of the Vatican. 


From Cerveteri a road runs northward to the Via 


Clodia, which it reaches a little before Bracciano, and it 
may fittingly be taken as the boundary of our study of 


this region, which, as a fact, lies well outside the limits © 
of the Roman Campagna proper, and belongs rather to — 


Southern Etruria. 


230 


Al 


THE VIA CLODIA AND THE VIA CASSIA 


Flaminia at any rate, left this road immediately 

after the Pons Mulvius, and ascended the hill 
straight in front of the bridge. It soon descended again 
into the valley of the stream known as the Acqua Traversa, 
and then ran along it for a while. On the hill facing the 
traveller from Rome at the fifth mile was the villa of 
Lucius Verus, in which two busts of Marcus Aurelius 
and four of Lucius Verus have been found. Some remains 
of a substruction wall, once far more extensive, may still 
be seen below the huge modern villa which has just been 
built on the top of the hill, in the garden of which a portion 
of the ancient villa itself, consisting of several rooms with 
mosaic pavements, is still preserved. Beneath them is a 
network of passages for the storage of water, running 
right through the hill. 

Not far off (though we do not know exactly where) was 
the grove of Robigus, which was at the fifth mile of the Via 
Clodia—a deity who, if not propitiated, Ovid tells us (Fast. 
iv. 907), would cause rust in the corn and ruin the crop. 

The pavement of the Via Clodia was found in making 
the munition works in the valley ; behind them it ascended 
a small gulley and reached the modern highroad (which 
goes round the villa of Verus to the right) a few hundred 
yards before the so-called tomb of Nero. Here the Clodia 
itself turned N.W.; but a road has been found continuing 
on in the same direction, which has been supposed, not 
without good reason, to have been the original road to 
Veii, which it reaches in another 5 miles or so. We may 
note on it the ruins of a massive tomb in concrete, with 

231 


Ts VIA cLopiA, after the construction of the Via 


\ 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


a cruciform chamber in the interior, lined with large 
blocks of stone (Fig. 45), but otherwise there is nothing 
of great importance to be noted until (after passing by 
a well-preserved Roman fountain—a small brick-lined 
chamber, known, I cannot say why, as the Fontana di 
Ré Carlo) it arrives at the foot of the citadel of Veii, where 
its pavement is still preserved in the low ground. 

Considerable remains of a building belonging to a large 
farm house have recently been found on the right of the 
road and covered up again. 3 

The so-called tomb of Nero, which has often been 
sketched by artists of all nations, is really a huge marble 
Sarcophagus which, as the inscription plainly shows, is 
that of one Publius Vibius Marianus. The present name 
does not appear before 1516, and the connexion with 
Nero is purely arbitrary, for his real tomb was somewhere 
on the Pincian Hill. Mediaeval legend, however, was 
always busy with him as a monster of iniquity, whose 
unquiet spirit wandered here and there in search of rest 
and might well have haunted this lonely tomb. 

The Via Clodia has now reached the summit of a narrow 
ridge between two valleys, and follows it for several 
miles. A few remains of ancient buildings may be noticed, 
but, despite the splendid view, there is nothing of any great 
importance, except some interesting mediaeval farmhouses 
—one of which, La Giustiniana, is built right on the line 
of the ancient road, which keeps on the right of the modern, 
and passes through some cuttings in the hills. Here the 
Via Triumphalis (followed by the now subterranean Aqua 
Traiana and by the modern railway to Viterbo) comes in 
to join the Via Clodia. There are no remains of interest 
along its course, except for the Bronze Age settlement 
already mentioned near the lunatic asylum of S. Onofrio. 
Unfortunately the excavations did not make its nature 
altogether clear: and the site is now covered by a group 
of modern houses, though an Etruscan tomb cut in the 
rock may still be seen. 

Half a mile further on another branch road turns off 
to the citadel of Veii: and just after it we see the lofty 
232 


"Ez *d a0ey OF 


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L 


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H 


JANHO 


cf 


VaaTvo 


‘(c€z ‘d) VNVINZINA VIA NO aWon ‘SY 


x 


THE VIA CLODIA AND THE VIA CASSIA 


mediaeval watch-tower of Spizzichino, perhaps of the 
eleventh century, one of the oldest and _ best-preserved 
towers in the Campagna. 

A mile or more brings us to the Osteria della Storta 
(“the inn of the crook in the road’’), the first ancient 
post-station out of Rome, which went on through mediaeval 
and modern days. It takes its name from the bifurcation 
of the Via Clodia and the Via Cassia, rather less than a 
mile further on. An inscription of A.D. 379-383 records 
the construction of stables for the horses of the State 
posting service, that they might no longer be worn out by 
an excessively long stage. A chapel on the way to the 
station records the appearance of Christ to S. Ignatius 
Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, on his journey to 
Rome—an account of which has recently been written by 
a learned member of that Society, Father Fonck. 

From La Storta a path runs southward, which seems to 
follow an ancient line for a while and probably reached 
the Via Cornelia eventually : but the country is difficult, 
being furrowed by deep valleys. Still, it is a significant 
fact that it lies in the same straight line as a direct path 
to Veii, which at present shows no traces of antiquity : 
and, as we know that the territory of Veil was very exten- 
sive before her conquest by Rome, it may be that this 
was one of the routes by which she reached the southern 
part of it; and it may even have led on to the coast. Half 
a mile further the Via Clodia goes off N.W., and then almost 
W. The ancient road traversed a series of deep cuttings 
which the modern road avoids; and the aqueduct soon 
leaves it and makes off due N. It is mostly subterranean 
or at ground-level, though some fine arches were pre- 
served near Cesano station until the restoration by Paul V: 
but now only a little ancient brickwork is visible at their 
base. 

The road passes through a lonely stretch of country 
for a few miles until the Osteria Nuova (probably the 
post-station Ad Careias, close to Careiae) is reached, 
where it is intersected by a road going N. to Cesano 
village, and so on to the Via Cassia, and S. to the large 

233 


ey 


a 
THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


farmhouse of S. Maria di Galera, and perhaps further on 
still. The modern highroad running N.W. to Anguillara 
probably does not follow an ancient line. A mile to the 
W. of this is one of the most picturesque spots in the whole 
Campagna—the village of Galera. It is situated on a rock 
almost surrounded by the deep valley of the Galera stream 
—for here the streams from the southern slopes of the 
extinct crater (now occupied by the Lake of Bracciano), 
which to the N. have run in shallow beds, suddenly find 
softer strata beneath them, and plunge abruptly over 
waterfalls into huge ravines, which they are ever widening 
and deepening. The lines of communication—the Via 
Clodia, and a little later a branch of it (which may have 
run to Caere, though after a few miles it divides into 
several branches, which I have never been able to follow 
out as yet)—thus kept along the ridges between the ravines 
as far as possible, only crossing them where it was un- 
avoidable, as the country is extremely difficult. 

It probably occupies the site of the ancient Careiae— 
about which we know very little—and it has an interesting 
mediaeval history. There are no traces of great antiquity 
to be seen, and indeed the village was only deserted in 
1809, when the malaria drove the inhabitants away. The 
picturesque desolation of its streets, half grown up with 
vegetation, and of its crumbling buildings, makes it 
one of the most attractive places to visit for those who 
love the remoter parts of the neighbourhood of Rome 
(Fig. 46). . 

The Via Clodia may be reached direct in half a mile from 
Galera by keeping along the bank of the stream. For 
the next 3 miles it rises gradually, crossing some other 
streams, which are here only insignificant obstacles. Atthe 
modern post (and railway) station of Crocicchie the Via 
Clodia is again intersected by an ancient road, almost 
at right angles. Going south-westward, it passes, after 
rather less than a couple of miles, the remains of a very 
large villa, with an outer platform some 860 by 810 feet, 
supported by a wall with low arches in front of it, upon 
which rises the villa terrace proper. There is a large reser- 
234 % 


ee 
ee eee 


THE VIA CLODIA AND THE VIA CASSIA 


voir for the supply of the villa, with nine chambers, each 
measuring 60 by 17 feet inside: and there are other 
‘traces of habitation in this now desolate district. If we 
follow the road a mile or more further we shall find ourselves 
joining the branch road from Osteria Nuova to Caere ; 
beyond it is the Casale della Tragliatella, and near it the 
-Fontanile delle Pertucce or Pertugie, i.e. the caves or 
holes. It lies in a valley, which has been drained by an 
artificial tunnel : the cliffs on its N. side are full of caves— 
at first quarries and then habitations, for the most part, 
though several of them are tombs—all of the Roman 
period, including some columbaria, which presumably 
belonged to the first century a.p. The largest tomb is the 
so-called Grotta della Regina, with an arched entrance 
flanked by columns, cut in the rock, and a niche for a 
sarcophagus within. Several cuttings for ancient roads 
descend into the valley from various directions. The 
Grotta della Regina was quite unknown to me when I set 
out from Crocicchie; and I had intended to make for 
Caere westward, only altering my plans when I was told 
of its existence at Tragliatella. The unexpected is, 
indeed, one of the joys of exploration in the Campagna ; 
and one must always be ready to vary one’s itinerary. 

Going N.W. from Crocicchie, on the other hand, we 
soon find pavement well preserved; and another path, 
also ancient, soon diverges to our right, and runs east- 
ward—probably as far as the Via Cassia at Pisciacavallo. 
Here the main track turns due N., and passes close by the 
remarkable ruins of S. Stefano, which attracted the atten- 
tion of Pirro Ligorio. He planned and drew them in 
the sixteenth century; and his representation is on the 
whole very accurate. The main building is about 50 feet 
square, and stands to nearly the same height. From the 
analogy of a similar building at Hadrian’s Villa, the so- 
called barracks of the Vigiles, it is fairly clear that it was 
really a storehouse in three stories. 

The path goes on to Anguillara ; and, though there 
are no traces of antiquity upon it, it is almost a necessary 
line of communication: for there are numerous other 

235 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIME; 


ruins in the neighbourhood. Outside Anguillara, indeed 
there is a meeting-point of seven or eight roads, radiating 
from it in all possible directions—all of them probably 
of ancient origin. The little village stands on a smal 
peninsula overlooking the lovely crater lake of Bracciano, 
the ancient Lacus Sabatinus—a great relief to the eye 
after the somewhat desolate district that we have traversed. 
The name is not, as one might suppose, derived from the 
eel-fishers, but goes back to classical times, in the form 
Angularius, so that it comes from the situation of the 
place in the corner of the lake, near the place where the 
Arrone ! leaves it: though the eel has found its way into 
the arms of the family of that name, and hence into those 
of the Orsini, who became lords of Anguillara in 1498. 
There was probably no village here but only a villa, of 
which scanty but sufficient traces may be seen among the 
modern houses. 

The Aqua Traiana ran along the E. and N. banks of the 
lake, its springs being situated at various points on the 
N.W. side of the crater: the Acqua Paola follows its course, 
but also receives a certain amount of water from the 
lake itself. No ancient road can have run along this 
EK. bank—there is barely room for the aqueduct: but 
a path runs westward from Anguillara along the lake 
shore, past the airship sheds of Vigna di Valle, to join the 
Via Clodia S. of Bracciano, which has more claim to be 
considered ancient. 

Bracciano itself, with its strikingly interesting mediaeval 
castle, does not occupy an ancient site, though it lay 
on the line of the Via Clodia a little beyond Ad Novas, 
where the road from Caere came up to join it; but a 
couple of miles beyond it, the road, which had descended 
into the lake basin, re-ascended through the woods to 
Forum Clodii, the site of which is marked by the little 

1 The name is very likely connected with the Etruscan praenomen 
Arruns or Aruns, and the tribus Arnensis, which is associated with 
the tribus Sabatina, probably derived its name from this river, 
and not from the Arnus (now the Arno) further to the N. 


Strabo makes a strange mistake in speaking of it as navigable, and 
in saying that it falls into the Tiber. 


236 


THE VIA CLODIA AND THE VIA CASSIA 


chapel of S. Liberato. Here are preserved a number of 
inscriptions, in which the people of this little posting 
village are mentioned under the name of Foroclodienses ; 
and it seems to have been the headquarters of a praefecture, 
by which the neighbouring villages were administered. A 
villa erected here in the time of Augustus by one Mettia 
Edone not unnaturally acquired the name of Pausilypon ; 
one may even wonder whether the owner brought the 
name with her from her native town of Naples, for her 
own name seems to show that she was a Greek. 

Further on, in a little valley, are the modern Bagni di 
Vicarello, with springs which were used in Roman times— 
though whether the Aquae Apollinares are to be placed 
here or at Stigliano, some miles to the W. of Manziana, 
is a difficult question. There are remains of a huge villa 
overlooking the lake under the modern Casale di Vicarello. 

Further E., along the lake shore, is the little town of 
Trevignano, which was defended by ancient walls, now 
hidden or destroyed. The rock above the town, which 
was probably the citadel, is now crowned by a mediaeval 
castle. The name probably comes from an estate called 
-Trebonianum: but what was the name of the town that 
once stood here—whether it was Sabate, or whether this 
name has arisen from a mistaken reading of the Itineraries 
—is another question. From it a modern road leads to 
Sette Vene, a post-station on the Via Cassia, to which 
we must now return. 

We left this road at the junction a little beyond La 
Storta. A few hundred yards further on, we see a deep 
cutting on the right, and here the modern road to the 
village of Isola Farnese turns off, by which the site of 
Veii can best be reached. A path soon diverges to the 
left and falls into the line of the Formello road, which is 
also of ancient origin. Isola Farnese, a small modern 
village (which I will not call miserable, because almost 
everyone who has written about Veii has already done 
so), lies on a hill just outside the perimeter of the eity, 
which, even so, is extremely large, exceeding in size both 
Volaterrae and Tarquinii, while it is only slightly smaller 

237 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIME: 


than that of Rome as enclosed by the Servian wall. Its 
importance in Etruscan times was very great, and it is 
not surprising that Rome found its rivalry intolerable. 
The position, too, is one of great natural strength, as it is 
almost entirely surrounded by two deep ravines, traversed 
by streams which met at its S.E. extremity, below the 
citadel: and only on the W. is it connected with the 
surrounding hills by a neck, now traversed by the road 
to Formello, which has, I suspect, been artificially deepened. 
Under this neck passes a long tunnel in which for over 
400 yards a stream was carried by the Etruscan engineers. 
The steep cliffs which surround the rest of the city have 
been further defended by walls of large volcanic blocks of 
stone. But on this vast tableland—for it is not sub- 
divided by any considerable depression—there is hardly 
a vestige to be seen of what was once a great city, which 
even in Imperial times knew a, certain revival of prosperity. 
Excavations have in recent years brought to light much 
that is interesting, and above all, near the mill, where the 
stream is usually crossed by a plank (unless it happens 
to be in flood, when one must go a long way round), the 
now famous temple with three cellae, in which was found 
the splendid life-size statue of Apollo (to whom it was 
probably dedicated) in painted terra-cotta, which is now 
one of the chief ornaments of the Museo di Villa Giulia. 
It formed part of a group representing the theft by Hermes 
of a sacred stag: and is of the highest importance as 
showing us how the first temple of Jupiter Capitolinus 
must have been decorated. Here, too, was a large open 
water-tank of the Etruscan period. . 
Ascending hence by an ancient road to the area of the 
city, we cross it until we reach the Ponte Sodo, on the 
N. side. Originally it was quite a small channel for the 
stream, about large enough for a man to walk through (and 
this was the usual size of such tunnels), but time has con- 
siderably enlarged it, and made it much more picturesque. 
Above it was one of the city gates; and outside this, to 
the N., was one of the cemeteries of the city, the only tomb 
of which that is worth seeing is the Grotto Campana, with 
238 


THE VIA CLODIA AND THE VIA CASSIA 


its interesting archaic paintings of the first half of the 
sixth century. We may return to the city a little further 
E., past a columbarium cut in the rock, often called the 
spezieria (or grocer’s shop), and notice on the way 
up some small archaic houses found in 1917. From here 
one must traverse almost the whole length of the site to 
arrive at the narrow neck which communicates with the 
citadel, popularly called the Piazza d’Armi. On the S. 
of this the road from Rome ascended: and just to the 
W. of it thousands of votive objects in terra-cotta were 
found in 1889—heads and feet predominating, belonging 
‘to some temple in the neighbourhood. Excavations in 
more recent years have brought to light remains of the 
gate by which the citadel was defended (it was closed in 
Roman times, when the citadel seems to have been deserted), 
of private houses, and of a large depression lined with 
stonework, which may have been an open water-tank. 
The contrast between the active life of ancient times 
and the desolation of modern days can nowhere be more 
‘strongly felt than here: and Dennis, in his Cities and 
Cemeteries of Etruria, helps us to realise such an impression 
on this and many another site that he describes in that 
most delightful work. 
_ he road to Formello, as we have seen, passes just to 
“the W. of Veii, and runs due N., leaving on the left an 
extensive cemetery in which some 1,200 tombs of various 
periods have been brought to light. A large number of 
them were the tombs of the ‘ Villanovan”’ people, who 
occupied the site of Veii, and many others in Etruria, 
‘before the Etruscans came. Beyond this, as far as For 
mello, the interest of the district on each side of the road 
‘lies mainly in the fact that it was, more than any other 
‘in the neighbourhood of Rome, most carefully drained, no 
doubt for agricultural purposes. Many of the streams 
are, wholly or partially, artificial channels hewn in the 
rock, and this fact is accurately indicated in the repre- 
sentation of these streams in the detailed maps of the 
‘Campagna. In many cases the roofs of these tunnels, 
which were originally not of very much larger dimensions 


239 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


than would enable a man to pass along them, have fallen 
in; while in others they are still preserved for quite a 
distance. The name Ponte Sodo (solid bridge) is thus 
not confined to Veii itself. 

The Via Cassia runs almost parallel to the Via di For- 
mello for 3 or 4 miles N. of Veii, but ascends a good deal 
more rapidly; on the ascent, the modern road hardly 
ever coincides with it, but keeps slightly to the right or 
the left. Before the ascent begins at the Osteria di Piscia- 
cavallo a road from the Via Clodia at Crocicchie falls into 
our road. At the top of the hill is the old Osteria della 
Merluzza (the “smelt,’’ probably so called from an old 
relief representing a fish), and here, too, an ancient branch 
road came in from the W., passing below Cesano village : 
while another joined the Via Cassia from the same direc- 
tion a mile further on, this last being followed by a modern 
road. There were quite a number of villas in the dis- 
trict. The main road in Roman times passed through 
the largest cutting I have seen in the Roman Campagna ; 
it is 60 feet deep, 18 wide, and about a mile long, thus 
traversing the rim of the extinct crater of Bracciano, 
which takes its name from the Roman post-station of 
Vacanae or Baccanae. High up on the hill to the right, 
called Monte Lupoli, are deep shafts communicating with 
a drainage channel far down in the bowels of the hill, 
which discharges into the stream which since 1838 has drained 
what would otherwise be a swamp. On the hill one 
writer, who describes the channel and shafts with fair 
accuracy, wishes to put the site of Veii, taking them to 
belong to the cuniculus excavated by Camillus during 
the siege! For the site of Veii was in dispute until the 
forum of the Imperial period was found in the nineteenth 
_ century—just as was that of Gabii. Baccano was indeed 
noted for its unhealthiness; and the many travellers of 
all nations who have passed the night at the post-station 
at the bottom of the crater have expressed various opinions 
as to its comfort. On the western rim of the crater is the 
Monte S. Angelo, on the summit of which was an Etruscan 
settlement, and to the N. of it a path leads through a 
240 ' 


ee 


THE VIA CLODIA AND THE VIA CASSIA 


deep cutting—a “neck” which can be seen from a long 
distance off—to the Lago di Martignano, and thence on 
to join the various ancient roads in the neighbourhood 
of Anguillara. Other roads placed Monte S. Angelo in 
communication with other parts of the country. 

To the right of the Via Cassia a probably ancient road, 

cutting off the windings of the modern road, runs up to 

Campagnano, which occupies a characteristically Etruscan 
site, though we know nothing of any traces of antiquity 
in the town itself. Tombs have been found in the neigh- 
bourhood. The whole country is contorted by volcanic 
action, and furrowed by deep ravines. The Via Cassia 
leaves the crater on the N. by another deep cutting through 
a hill which once again bears the grim name of Monte 
dell’ Impiccato, or Hangman Hill. Other cuttings here- 
abouts may belong to ancient roads, though as the soil 
is soft one cannot always be certain. 

The forest of Baccano was indeed so infested with 
brigands that the simple expedient of burning it all down 
was eventually adopted early in the sixteenth century. 

After a sharp descent we reach a modern bridge called 
the Ponte del Pavone, crossing a small stream, which, 

however, rapidly fills after rain: in fact, the ford was so 

dangerous in bad weather that Pope Gregory XIII, on 
his return to Rome in September 1578, sent a messenger 
on ahead to report, before he would come on himself ; 
and we soon come to a small single-arched ancient bridge, 
just before the large post-house of Sette Vene. Here the 
modern road from Bracciano and Trevignano (on the line, 
no doubt, of an ancient branch of the Via Clodia) comes 
in: and, if we will, we may round off the area which we 
have chosen for study by following a modern road through 
Campagnano to the twentieth mile of the Via Flaminia. 
The easternmost portion of it shows pavement in situ, 
and though the western does not give us definite indica- 
tions, we may assume the antiquity of the whole line with 
at least a certain amount of probability, 


Q 241 


THE ROADS LEADING TO 
TH E NORTH 


V 


_ PRELIMINARY NOTE 


the right bank of the Tiber long before the con- 
struction of the Via Flaminia, as far as the crossing 
of the river into Umbria below Otricoli. This was fol- 
lowed by the Via Tiberina, and was not as difficult a 


@ Ties WAS PROBABLY a primitive route along 


route as some writers have supposed. We cannot say 
when the shorter but more hilly road running W. of 


a 


_ Soracte was made: but in any case it owed its establish- 
ment as a permanent highway to Gaius Flaminius, who 
_ built the road which has ever since borne his name in 
_ 220 B.c. It ran from Rome to Rimini, and formed the 
_ easiest route from Rome to Cisalpine Gaul and the fertile 
Po valley, which had recently come under the sway of 
- Rome. It was therefore simply a short cut (gaining about 
_ 5 miles on the Via Tiberina), and it was, we may say, only 
_ by accident that it passed through any part of Etruria at 
_ all on its way to the crossing of the Tiber below Otricoli. 
_ By the time it was built, the Etruscan city of Falerii had 
_ already (in 241) been destroyed, and it passed a few miles 
_ to the E. of it, crossing the Treia valley by an extremely 
_ fine piece of engineering; while the Roman city founded 
in its place was served, not by the Via Flaminia, but by 
a branch of the Via Cassia which ran through Nepi and 
on to Orte and Amelia. 


The Via Flaminia must have been of considerable mili- 


“ tary importance to Rome, especially during the second 
_ Punic War; and when Augustus undertook the restora- 
_ tion of the roads of Italy, it was for this reason that he 


took charge of this road himself, and rebuilt all the 


_ bridges (as he himself recorded) except the Pons Mulvius 


245 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES — 


and one other: and it was evidently well kept up in 
subsequent times. ‘ 

As a result it became a much-frequented road: and 
the most striking proof of this is perhaps furnished by 
four silver cups found at the baths of Vicarello, on the N. 
shores of the Lake of Bracciano. _ These are each inscribed 
with the itinerary from Gades (Cadiz) in Southern Spain 
to Rome, with the name and distance of each post-station : 
which proves that the land route was, in the time of Trajan 
or not much later, preferred to the sea route across the 
Gulf of Lions. The military importance of the road 
comes out in the history of Vespasian’s advance on Rome, 
and later on in Constantine’s victorious march: while 
it played an even larger part in the Gothic and Lombard 
wars of the fifth and sixth centuries. The road followed | 
the old Tiber valley route for the first 9 miles, and then — 
ran over hilly country for the next 27, returning to the — 
river at the thirty-sixth mile. 

It soon came into difficult country, and had to pursue 
a very sinuous course: while the collapse of the bridge 
and embankment by which it crossed the Treia valley 
led to the complete abandonment of that whole stretch 
of the road to the N. of Soracte. It does not touch any 
town, either Roman or Etruscan, in this portion of its 
course: Capena, the only one of any importance—and 
this probably diminished in Roman times—lay 8 or 4 miles — 
off to the right, and the other villages of the district were 
still further off, by the Tiber, and more easily accessible 
by the Via Tiberina or even by ferry from the road on 
the left bank of the river. 


246 


AIT 


THE VIA FLAMINIA AND THE VIA TIBERINA 


on the northern slopes of the Capitol; and the 
tomb of Bibulus, to the left of the monument to 
Victor Emanuel II, still stands to indicate the direction 
of the road. After this it turned almost due N., and ran 
for about 3 miles quite straight to the bridge by which 
it erossed the Tiber—the ancient Pons Mulvius, now 
the Ponte Molle. It was perhaps for this reason that 
burial on the Via Flaminia was a privilege granted, as 
it was to Bibulus, as a special honour to his merits at the 
bidding of the Senate and the people. Sulla and, later 
on, Paris, the famous actor, were among those who received 
it. A good deal of ancient work may be seen in the bridge, 
though it probably belongs to a restoration of 109 B.c. 
In the old days the ascent to it was a good deal steeper 
on each side; and this explains why Martial speaks of 
it more than once as a haunt of beggars. 
From the bridge the road turned sharp to the right along 


Ts: VIA FLAMINIA left the Servian city by a gate 


the low ground by the river, and did not leave the Tiber 


valley until the post-station of Saxa Rubra or Ad Rubras, 
which stood at the further end of the red tufa cliffs, below 
which the road runs for 4 miles or so. In this first part 
of its course there is very little of interest to be noted. 
The picturesque caves in the cliffs of Grottarossa, which, 
whatever their origin, were used for habitation until a 
fairly recent period, are being thrown into the shade by 
a large quarry, which long ago destroyed the front of the 
tomb of the Nasonii, first discovered in 1674, in widening 


the road for the jubilee of the following year. Some of 


its paintings are in the British Museum, but a few can be 
‘DAT 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


faintly discerned on the spot. A few other tombs still 
stand in the fields to the right of the highroad, and show 
that the road must have run further out, where it would 
have been more liable to interruption from high floods 
than the modern road. | 

We pass the valley of the Cremera, which is formed 
by the union of the two brooks, the deep valleys of which 
serve to isolate the site of Veii. The acropolis may be 
reached from here in about two hours on foot. The 
stream is associated in our minds with the story of the 
Fabii, who may indeed have fortified themselves on the 
knoll, now crowned by a mediaeval tower, which almost 
seems to block the mouth of the valley. The bridge 
over the stream is Roman, though to some extent altered. 
Further on is a very large and prominent tomb on a cliff 
above the road, and about a mile further on, and a little 
less than 8 miles from Rome, we see in front of us the 
massive supporting walls of the villa of Livia, the wife of 
Augustus, as was shown by the discovery in it in 1867 
of the splendid statue of the youthful Emperor, now in 
the Braccio Nuovo of the Vatican. On the hill-top there 
is still to be seen an underground room belonging to the 
villa, with paintings on the walls representing a garden. 
It commands a fine view down the valley towards Rome. 

A bronze tablet was found in the Tiber in 1909, which, 
from the inscription on it, may have been originally 
affixed to a ferry-boat across the Tiber; for a part of the 
villa was situated at Fidenae. 

At the foot of the hill are the remains of a brick arch, 
perhaps of the Constantinian period, which gives its modern 
name to the hamlet.1_ The Via Flaminia ascends to the 
left, while a road called the Via Tiberina turns off to the 
right, and keeps along the Tiber valley. In the territory 
between the two roads, but rather nearer to the latter, are 
some enormous quarries, covering a very great extent of 
ground, and appropriately known as Grotta Oscura (the 
Dark Cave). From there was hewn the stone that served 
for the construction of the Servian walls after the fire of 


+ It is known as Prima Porta (“the First Gate ”), See Fig. 47. 
248 


248 


7. PRIMA PORTA (Pp. 


4 


48. QUARRIES NEAR GROTTA OSCURA (p. 249). 


6 
+ 
N 
ov 
vo 
1S) 
Ss 

Cet 
fe) 

a 


ae a 


“THE VIA FLAMINIA AND THE VIA TIBERINA 


_ the Gauls—a hard, yellowish tufa, whereas the cindery 


tufa which is found in the walls of the Palatine comes 
from Prima Porta or Fidenae, and takes its name from 
the latter. There are various other smaller quarries in 


_ the neighbourhood of Grotta Oscura (Fig. 48). The Via 


- Flaminia, until a hundred years ago, and in great measure 


until the construction of the electric tram line, had a 
good many more remains of pavement to show than most 


_ other roads out of Rome. 


There is little of further interest until we reach the 


modern farmhouse of Malborghetto (taking its name 
from a mediaeval castle constructed round it), which is 


built into a four-way arch of concrete faced with brick. 


_ This belongs to the time of Constantine, and marks, as 
-Toebelmann, a German scholar who fell at Mons, pointed 
_ out in a work written before his death and published post- 

_ humously,! the site of that Emperor’s headquarters on the 

night before the battle of Saxa Rubra. By going care- 
fully into the accounts which we have of the battle, he 
_ showed that the only possible position which Maxentius 

_ could have taken up was a little N. of Prima Porta, on 

the hills and in the plain, with the river in his rear. In 


doing so he made precisely the same error of neglecting 


__ tosecure his retreat which caused the defeat of the Romans 
- at the Allia seven hundred years before: and when 
Constantine attacked the right wing on the plain with 
_ his cavalry (which he sent by four different routes, so 


RRA, 


that their arrival took the enemy completely by sur- 
prise) Maxentius’s troops (except the Praetorian Guard on 
the left, who were cut down to a man) gave way in panic, 
and were driven down the Via Flaminia as far as the 
Ponte Molle, where many of them, including their leader, 


were drowned in the river. 


4 
j 
\ 


Shortly after Malborghetto a road of ancient origin 
diverges to the right to Scrofano, which lies under the 
prominent Monte Musino, crowned by the scanty ruins 
of a mediaeval castle, in which some have tried to see 
remains of the Arae Mutiae, which once belonged to 


1 Der Bogen von Malborghetto. 
249 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


Veii. From Scrofano roads lead across to the Via Cassia. 
At Malborghetto we are some 18 miles from Rome, and 
from here the road rises, following a winding course, and 
keeping to the watershed between valleys which grow 
deeper and deeper as we go on. 

There is nothing of note until we reach the nineteenth 
mile, above the picturesque village of Castelnuovo di 
Porto, which belongs to the diocese of that name. — 

On the highroad is the old posting-inn (now a private 
house) of which Browning speaks in The Ring and the 
Book. The large kitchen chimney may still be noticed 
from outside. From here a road leads down to the Via 
Tiberina in the valley. A mile further on is the Madonna 
della Guardia, taking its name from a large mediaeval. 
castle which guarded the road, just above the tram station 
of Morlupo. It is just 20 Roman miles from the Servian 
walls of Rome, and probably occupies the site of the post- 
station of Ad Vicesimum. An ancient road diverged to 
the right here, and another within half a mile; and both 
of them led over difficult country to the ancient Etruscan 
city of Capena, about 3 miles away. It occupied a fine 
site on the north rim of an extinct volcanic crater. ‘Tombs 
have been found, dating from the beginning of the Iron 
Age down to Roman times; and inscriptions show that 
it was one of a group of three federated communities, 
to which belonged most of the territory in the V between 
the two main roads, going as far N. as the southern slopes 
of Monte Soracte. The other two were probably Flavinium, 
the modern Fiano, and Lucoferonia,! where was situated the — 
famous sacred grove of the goddess Feronia, worshipped 
more by the Sabines, it seems, than by the Etruscans. 
Those who were possessed with her spirit walked with 
naked feet over heaps of burning coal and ashes without 
receiving injury. The site of the latter is alittle to 
the N. of Nazzano, now marked by the old church of | 
S. Antonio, on a hill above the Tiber. There is nothing 
standing now at Capena but one solitary ruin: and, — 


* The map, following De Rossi, places Lucoferonia where, I think, 
Capena should be. 


250 


ey OS pI 


; THE VIA FLAMINIA AND THE VIA TIBERINA 


as at Veii, I cannot but commend Dennis’s delightful 
description of the site rather than attempt it myself. “The 
view from the height of Capena,” he says, “is wildly 


_ beautiful. The deep hollow on the south with its green 


carpet, the steep hills overhanging it dark with wood '—the 
groves of Capena, be it remembered, were sung by Vergil— 
the bare swelling ground to the north with Soracte tower- 
ing above, the snow-capped Apennines in the eastern 


horizon: the deep silence, the seclusion: the absence of 


human habitations (not even a shepherd’s hut) within 
the sphere of vision, save the distant town of Sant’ Oreste, 
scarcely distinguishable from the grey rock on which it 


stands; compose a scene of more singular desolation than 


belongs to the site of any other Etruscan city in this 


district of the land.”’ | 


FSET PEO a EOC Re i pie i 


- After the second road to Capena has left it, the Via 


‘Flaminia turns W. to follow a narrow neck between two 


valleys, one running S. and the other N.; but this it 
only does for half a mile, turning N. again where the road 
to Campagnano goes off to the left. The country con- 
tinues to be more and more furrowed by valleys, and, 
beyond its natural beauties, presents no special features 
of interest. But those who would gain an idea of it 
should not fail to go on as far as S. Oreste and ascend 
Soracte, which, from its isolated position, commands a 
view of Southern Etruria and of the fertile hills of Sabina, 
with the outliers of the Apennines behind them across 
the Tiber valley, which no other point affords. They will 
thus be able to survey the northern part of the territory 


we have been studying, just as from Monte Gennaro and 
_ from Monte Cavo they will be able to see the rest of it: 
and such general views may form a fitting conclusion 


to the somewhat detailed examination of the Roman 
Campagna which I have put before my readers in the 
foregoing pages. 


1 This has now disappeared and the hill-sides are bare ; but for 
the rest every detail still applies. 


251 


e 


INDEX 


_ Acqua Acetosa (via Latina), 159 
_ Acqua Felice, 147, 155 

_ Acqua Traversa, 231 

_ Ad Bivium, 152, 173 

_ Ad Careias, 233 

-_ Ad Duos Lauros, 131, 146 

_ Ad Martis, 177 


Ad Novas, 236 


Ad Pictas, 152 

Ad Quintanas, 150, 181 
_ Ad Rubras, 247 

_ Ad Statuas, 151 

Ad Turres, 227 


. Ad Vicesimum, 250 
- Aesulana, Arx, 122 
_ Aglio, Cava d’, 172 


 Agylla, 229 


_ Alba Longa, 29, 31, 126, 190 sqq. 
Alban Hills, 22 sqq., 48, 50, 51, 125 


sqq., 134 

Alban Lake, 168, 191 sqq. 

Alban Mount, 23, 195 

Albano, 127, 193 sqq. 

_ Albulae, Aquae, 99 sqq. 

 Albunea, Grove of, 209 

- Aldobrandini, villa (Frascati), 164 

Algidus, 23, 126, 151, 153, 172 

Allia, 70 sqq. 

Alsium, 229 

Ambarvalia, festival of the, 29 

Anagnina, Via, 160 

_ Angelo, S., 117, 118 

Anguillara, 235 

Angusculanus, Vicus, 161 

Anio, 34, 58, 61, 65, 84, 93, 96, 101, 

113 sqq., 145 

- Anio Novus, Aqueduct, 119, 128, 149, 

155, 159 

Anio Vetus, 119, 149 


| Annunziatella, 207 


Antemnae, 29, 30, 59, 61, 63 sq., 67 
Antium, 189, 2138 

_ Appia, Via, 19, 31, 33 sq., 40, 42, 126, 
129, 174 sqq., 213 

_ Appia Pignatelli, Via, 149, 154, 179 


J &qq. 

_ Aqua Alexandrina, 132, 136, 147 

_ Aqua Appia, 144 

Aqua Claudia, 119, 128, 149, 155 sqq. 


1. Names of places outside the area of the Roman Campagna are not indexed, 


2. Where a name is several times mentioned the page where it is most fully 
discussed is indicated by the use of heavier type. 


Aqua Crabra, 167 

Aqua Julia, 156, 168 

Aqua Marcia, 119, 143, 155 

Aqua Tepula (Sorgente Preziosa), 166 

Aqua Virgo, 143, 144 

Aquae Albulae, 99 sqq. 

Aquae Labanae, 73, 92 

Arcione, Castello, 98 

Arco di Nostra Donna, 218 

Ardea, 28, 32, 212, 213 

Ardeatina, Via, 179, 205 sqq. 

Aricia, 28, 194 

Arrone, 32, 219, 227, 236 

Artena, 141, 173 

Artena Caeritum, 228 

ae Brethren, Grove of the, 29, 30, 
19 

Astura, 213 

Aurelia, Via, 35, 45, 225 sqq. 


Baccano, 240 

Bagni, 100 

Barberini, Villa (Castel Gandolfo), 191 

Barberini Tomb (Palestrina), 139 

Battista, Casale, 116, 117 

Bernardini Tomb (Palestrina), 139 

Bibulus, Tomb of, 247 

Borghese, Barco (Frascati), 164 

Borghese, Villa (Frascati), 148 

Borghetto, Castle of, 166 

Bovillae, 28, 33, 189 sq. 

Bracciano, 32, 42, 236 

Brutus (Villa of Tibur), (so-called), 
120 sqq. 

Buffalotta, Fossa, 70, 85 sq. 


Cabum, 28 

Caenina, 29, 90 

Caere, 32, 35, 139, 228 sqq. 

Caffarella, Valle della, 179 

Cagnoletti, Monte, 199 

Campagnano, 241 

Campana, Via, 29 sq., 219 

Campus Rediculi, 178 

Capannelle, Le (below Tivoli), 133, 137 
ad. (via Latina), 156 

Capena, 32, 250 sq. 

Capena, Porta, 33, 176 

Capobianco, 89, 90 

Cappellette, Roman Villa of the, 165 


253 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


Casale Rotondo, 187 

Casalone, 228 

Casilina, Via, 146 

Cassia, Via, 35, 281 sqq. 

Cassius, Villa of (Tivoli), 120 sq. 

Castel Campanile, 228 

Castel Fusano, 211 

Castel Gandolfo, 127, 190 

Castel Giubileo, 67, 69 

Castel di Leva, 208 

Castel S. Pietro, 139 

Castel Porziano, 205 

Castellaccio, 145 

Castelnuovo di Porto, 250 

Castiglione, Torre di, 134 

Castrimoenium (Marino), 28, 31, 126, 
127, 154, 163, 168 

Castrimoeniensis, Via, 3, 126, 176 

Cavamonte, 137 

Cavo, Monte, 23, 195 

Cavona, Via, 133, 149, 161, 165, 189 

Cecchignola, 208 

Centocelle, 147 

Centroni, Villa of, 159 

Cervara, 144 

Cervelletta, 144 

Cerveteri (see Caere) 

Cesano, 233 

Cesareo, 8., 48, 151 

Cesarina, La, 88 

Cestius, Pyramid of, 214 

Ciampino, Casale, 160 

Cicero, Tusculan Villa of, 167, 168 

Circeo, Monte, 198, 213 

Clodia, Via, 29, 35, 281 sq. 

Clodii, Forum, 236 ; 

Clodius, Villa of (Via Appia), 190, 194 

Coazzo. 87, 88 

Coelius Vinicianus, Tomb of, 168 

Collatia, 31, 32, 63, 67, 145 

Collatina, Via, 31, 32, 131, 133, 148 sq. 

Collina, Porta, 58, 60, 139 

Colonna, 150 

Conca (see Satricum) 

Concae, 99 

Corbio (Rocca Priora), 28, 172 

Corcolle, 137 

Corioli, 28 

Cornelia, Via, 226 sqq. 

Corniculani, Montes, 57, 116 

Corsi, Casale dei, 197 

Cremera, 30, 72, 248 

Crustumerium, 30, 71, 72, 86 

Cures, 77, 78 


Decimo (Via Laurentina), 40, 41, 210 

Ad _ JDecimum (Decimienses), (Via 
Latina), 41, 161 

Diavolo, Ponte del, 80, 81 

Diavolo, Sedia del, 88, 87 

Domine quo Vadis ? 178 

Domitian, Alban Villa of, 191 


eiry Singulares (Cemetery of the), 


Eretum, 73 sqq. 
Eurysaces, Tomb of, 128 


254 


Ficulea, 30, 31, 88 sqq. 
Fidenae, 28 sqq., 59, 63, 67 sqq., 71, 
249 sq. 


Fiorano, Farm of, 187 

Flaminia, Via, 34 sqq., 42 sqq., 66, 83, 
245 sqq. 

Flavinium (Fiano), 250 

Formello, 239 sq. 

Fortinei, 28 

Fortune, Temple of, at Praeneste, 113 
189 sqq. 

Fossae Cluiliae, 28 

Frascati, 127, 150, 160 sqq. 

Frattocchie, le, 189 

Fregenae, 219, 227 


Gabii, 28, 29, 31, 44, 67, 184 8qq. 
Gabina, Via, 31, 128 

Galera, 30, 226, 234 
Gallicano, 135, 137 
Genazzano, 142 

Gennaro, Monte, 115 
Gennaro, S., 198 

Genzano, 196 

Gericomio, 121, 122, 137 
Giostra, la, 188 

Giovanni, Tor S., 86 
Giubileo, Castel, 67, 69 
Gordiani, Villa of the, 131 
Grottaferrata, Abbey of, 167 


Hadrian, Villa of, 103 sqq. 

Helena, Mausoleum of (Torre Pigna- 
tarra), 146 . 

Hercules, Temple of (Tibur), 112 sq. 

Horace, Villa of (Tibur), 114 sq. 


Ilario, Catacombs of §., 152 
Isola Farnese, 237 sq. 


Janiculum, 225 
J sey Manatee Temple of (Lanuvium), 


Jupiter Latiaris, Temple of, 195 


Labanae Aquae, 73, 92 
Labicana, Via, 31, 41, 43, 126 sqq., 141 
Labici, 28, 32, 63, 67, 128, 150 

Labico, 151 

Ladispoli, 229 

Lanuvium, 28, 199 sq. 

Latina, Porta, 153 


Laurentina, Via, 32, 40, 41, 209 sqq. 
Laurentini, 28, 32, 212 

Lavinium, 28, 29, 209, 212 

Livia, Villa of, 248 

Lorium, 227 

Lucano, Ponte, 101 sgq., 116, 137 
Lucoferonia, 250 

Lungliezza, 133, 145 


Maccarese (Fregenae), 219, 227 
Macchia della Faiola, 172 
Mactorina, Via, 198 


Maecenas, Villa of (Tivoli), 111 


Maggiore, Monte, 75, 76 
Magliana, La, 49 
Malabarba, Via (Mola Barbara), 143 


' Malagrotta, 226 


Malborghetto, 249 

Mandela, 25 

Marcellina, 115, 116 

Marciana, Villa of (Frascati), 166 
Marcigliana, Casale, 71 


Marco Simone, Casale and Laghetto 


di, 88, 97 
Maria Nuova, S. (Via Appia), 185 
Marino, 127, 168 
Mario, Monte, 22 
Marius, the Younger, 139 


_ Marozza, Grotta, 48, 74, 92 
_ Marrana Mariana, 156, 168 
- Martis, Clivus, 177 


Maschio d’Ariano, 172 
Matidia, Villa of (Frascati), 166 


_ Maxentius, Circus of, 182 
_ Mentana (see Nomentum) 
_ Metella, Caecilia, Tomb of, 183 


Micara, Torre, 162 
Molle, Ponte (Pons Milvius, Mulvius), 
61, 245 sq. 


- Mondragone, Villa (Frascati), 149 


Montalto, Villa (Frascati), 163 
Montecelio (Monticelli), 97, 116, 117 


_ Monte Compatri, 150 


Monte Musino, 249 
Monte Porzio, 165 

Monte Rotondo, 73, 91 
Morena, Casale di, 160 
Moricone, 115 

Muti, Villa (Frascati), 163 


 Nemi, 197 


Nettuno, 213 


 Nomentana, Porta, 82 


 Nomentana, Via, 48, 57, 59, 62, 63, 65, 


77, 82 sqq. 
Nomentum, 28, 32, 91 
Nona, Ponte di, 41, 42 
Norba, 28, 31 
Novus, Vicus, 76, 81 


‘Osa, stream, 133, 145 


Ostia, 44, 47, 49, 214 sqq. 


_ Ostiensis, Via, 36, 42, 43, 214 sqq. 


Palazzola, 192 
Palidoro, 227 
Palombara, 87, 91, 115 sqq. 


 Pancratii, Tomb of the, 154 


Pantano Secco, 148 
Parco Colonna, 190 


. Passerano, 137 


Pastore, S., 138 


 Patinaria, Via, 84, 85 


Pedum, 28, 32, 137 
Pertucce, Fontana delle, 235 
Pescara, La, 138 

Pigneto Sacchetti, 225 
Piombinara, Castle of, 148 
Poggio Tulliano, 167 


| 


INDEX 


Poli, 137 
Pompey, Villa of, Albano, 194 
Pompey, Villa of, Alsium, 229 
Pomptine Marshes, 24, 32, 49, 129, 174 
Ponte Amato, 138 
Ponte §. Antonio, 137 
Ponte Galera, 219 
Ponte Lucano, 101 sqq., 116, 137 
Ponte Mammolo, 96 
Ponte Molle, 61, 245 sq. 
Ponte Nomentano, 84 
Ponte di Nona, 41, 42, 132 
Ponte Sardone, 138 
Ponte Squarciarelli, 168 
Ponte di Terra (near Hadrian’s Villa), 
110 
id. (Via Praenestina), 136 
Porta Appia, 176 
Porta Aurelia, 225 
Porta Capena, 153, 176 
Porta Collina, 59, 60, 139 
Porta Esquilina, 128 
Porta S. Giovanni, 154 
Porta Latina, 153 
Porta Maggiore (Praenestina), 128, 146° 
Porta 8. Paolo, 214 
Porta Pertusa, 226 
Porta S. Sebastiano, 176 
Porta 8. Spirito, 225 
Porta Tiburtina, 94, 143 
Portuensis, Via, 227 
Portus, 218 ne 
Praeneste (Palestrina), 28, 32, 44, 113, 
138, 139 
Praenestina, Via, 
4.128 sqq. 
Prata Porei, 149 
Pratica di Mare, 46, 210, 212 
Prima Porta, 249 
Primitivus, Church of S., 136 
Pupinian tribe, 30, 148 
Pyramid of Cestius, 214 
Pyrgi, 229 


ye 


36, 41, 102, 127, 


Querquetulae, 28, 137 

Quintilii, Villa of the (Via Appia), 
156 sqq., 185 

Quintilii, Villa of the (Mondragone), 
164 

Quintilius Varus, Villa of (Tivoli), 114 

Quintanas, Ad, 41, 150 


Regillus, Lake, 148, 149 

Regulini-Galassi Tomb (Caere), 230 

Robigus, Grove of, 231 (see 30) 

Rocca di Papa, 195 

Rocca Priora, 23, 172 

Roma Vecchia, 156, 186 

Romulus, son of Maxentius, Heroon 
of, 131, 151, 182 

Rospigliosi, Villa, 151 

Rufina, S., 226 

Rufinella, Villa, 168 


| Rustica, La, 144 ,g 
Sabate, 32 Fit" G 


Sacco, River,"139 : 
255 


THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA IN CLASSICAL TIMES 


Sacer, Mons, 84 

Salomone, Monte, 171] 

Salaria, Ponte, 65 sq. 

Salaria, Porta, 59 

Salaria, Via, 30, 36, 57, 59 sqq., 92, 115, 
116, 219 

Salone, Casale, 49, 144 

Satricum, 28, 31, 126, 208 

Saza Rubra, 249 

Scaptia, 28, 33, 137 

Schiavi, Tor de’, 131 sqq. 

Scrofano, 249 

Sebastiano, Church of 8. (Via Appia), 
181 

Segni, 141 

eg Villa, 160 

Sette Bassi, 156 sq., 186 

Settecamini, 97, 98, 116 

Sette Chiese, Via delle, 207 

Sette Vene, 237, 241 

Severiana, Via, 211, 217 

Sgurgola, 25 

Solfatara, 208, 209 

Solluna, 198 

Soracte, 250 sq. 

Spada, Villa (see Fidenae) 

Spizzichino, 233 

Squarciarelli, Ponte degli, 108 

S. Stefano, ruins, 235 

8S. Stefano, Colle di, 109 

S. Stephen, basilica, 154 

Storta, 233 

Stuart, Henry, Cardinal of York, 163 

Stuart, Charles, 129 

Sub-Augusta, Church of (ad duos 
Lauros), 147, 150 

Sublanuvium, 198 


Tellenii, 28 (see 188) 

Terracina, 175, 198 

Tiberina, Via, 36, 248 

Tibur (Tivoli), 28, 32, 44, 52, 58, 103, 
110 sqq., 118 sqq. 

Tiburtina, Porta, 94 sq., 143 

Tiburtina, Via, 57, 87, 98 sqq., 145 

Tolerini, 28 

Tor Angela, 132 


256 


Tor Marancia, 207 

Tor Paterno, 212 | 

Tor de’ Schiavi, 131, 143, 156 

Torlonia, Villa (Frascati), 163 

Torre di Castiglione, 134 

Torre Centocelle, 147 

Torre Fiscale, 155 

Torre di Micara, 162 

Torre Nuova, 147, 148, 162 

Torre Pignattarda, 146 

Torre Tre Teste, 132 

Torri, Grotte di, 78, 79 

Torrimpietra, 227 

Travicella, Vicolo della, 178 

Trevignano, 237 

Triopion, 180 

Triumphalis, Via (Alban Mount), 196 

Triumphalis, Via (Via Clodia), 225, 232 

Tusculum, 28, 30, 44, 126, 128, 148 
sqq., 167 sqq. 

Tutia, 28 


Urban, Tomb of S. (Via Appia), 184 
Urbano, Church of 8S. (Triopion), 180 


Valerii, Tomb of the, 154 
Valle d’Inferno, 225 
Valmontone, 152 _ 
Veii, 18, 28, 30 sgqqg., 45, 71 sq., 281 


8qq. 
Velletri, 24 sq., 28, 197, 200 
Verano, Campo, 98 
Vermicino, Fonte, 162 
Vicarello, 41, 237 
Vicesimum, Ad, 250 (cf. 41) 
Vicus Angusculanus, 161 
Vicus Augustanus Laurentium, 211 
Vigesimo, Valle, 41 
Villanovans, 26, 239 
Viminalis, Porta, 94 
Vitellia, Via, 227 

Vitriano, Colle, 116 
Vittorino, 8., 111 

Vivaro, Valle, 198 


Zagarolo, 135, 137, 148 
Zolforata, 208, 209 


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